Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Rivers (Prevention of Pollution)

Mr. J. Wells: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate has been made of the cost to farmers in England and Wales of providing new facilities for effluent disposal as a result of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act 1961.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): No worthwhile estimate of such costs is possible as the circumstances of farms vary so much.

Mr. Wells: Is my hon. Friend aware that this new Act is causing great concern to farmers in many parts of the country? I appreciate that my hon. Friend says that there is wide variation from farm to farm, but there is also wide variation from river

authority to river authority. Farmers everywhere in low-lying land are most concerned about this. Will my hon. Friend try at an early date to give some assurance to the farming community that they will not be unreasonably persecuted by the river authorities?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. I have no doubt that the river boards will use their discretion in imposing conditions which farmers will have to meet before continuing to discharge effluent into streams.

Covent Garden Market (Site)

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made by the Covent Garden Market Authority in its search for a new site for the market.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): Last April the Authority commissioned a firm of consultants to study a number of sites in relation to the many factors involved. I understand that the Authority expects to receive the consultants' report within the next three or four weeks.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Presumably this refers to sites outside the Covent Garden area, but in view of the fact that the Act authorises the Authority only to establish a new market inside the Covent Garden area, will not some of this expenditure appear to be going to be abortive?

Mr. Soames: This firm of consultants has surveyed a number of sites outside.


My right hon. Friend will remember that during the passage of the Bill through Parliament it was said that
… it is not the intention of the Minister of Agriculture to withhold his consent to the promotion of a Private Bill in Parliament by the Authority empowering it to build the Market elsewhere …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 13th July, 1961; Vol. 233, c, 281.]
should this be considered to be the right answer.

Yugoslav Beef

Mr. A. Brown: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much beef was imported from Yugoslavia during 1962.

Mr. Soames: The provisional figure is 39,000 tons, out of total beef imports for the year of 320,000 tons.

Mr. Brown: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is alleged that much of this meat is the product of a "forced feeding" technique in which excessive quantities of tetracyclin and other antibiotics are used to promote growth? Would my right hon. Friend investigate this matter in the interests of public health?

Mr. Soames: Since my hon. Friend has made this statement, I will of course look at it, but this is news to me.

Sir J. Barlow: Can my right hon. Friend say what proportion of this beef is bull beef?

Mr. Soames: Certainly not without a little more notice.

Irish Sugar Agreement

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will publish in full the terms of the Irish Sugar Agreement before Parliament is asked to give further consideration to the matter in the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

Mr. Soames: The Press notice published on 1st November, 1962, gave full details of our agreement on sugar with the Irish Republic. At my hon. Friend's request, a copy of the draft Agreement was placed in the Library of the House. The Agreement will not be signed until Clause 21 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill has been approved by Parliament and received the Royal Assent.

Sir G. Nabarro: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his behaviour in this matter gives the impression that he is a rather cloistered individual and that he has something to withhold? Is he further aware that the general sugar interests in this country, including my own constituency interest, have had very wide concern with the details of the Agreement? Would it be in order for me to photocopy the copy in the Library and distribute it to the interests concerned? If that is in order, why cannot my right hon. Friend do it from his Ministry and save me the trouble and inconvenience?

Mr. Soames: There is no question of anything being hidden. In fact, everything that matters was put out in the Press release which was circulated at the time; all the relevant things were included in it. My hon. Friend asked me some time back whether I could make fuller details available to him, and I said that I would see that a copy was put in the Library. There is no question of secrecy in this regard.

Mr. Peart: We had a very full debate on this Irish Sugar Agreement in Standing Committee on the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Would the Minister recommend his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro), who seems to wish to snipe at this Agreement, to read our proceedings carefully?

Mr. Speaker: It is not the duty of the Minister to make recommendations to his hon. Friend.

River Leen (Flooding)

Mr. Whitlock: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will make a statement about the proposed improvement scheme to alleviate flooding in Nottingham from the River Leen.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: My right hon. Friend hopes to be able to give a decision on the river board's proposals for the improvement of the River Leen within the next two weeks.

Mr. Whitlock: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that the Minister has had the Trent River Board proposals for eighteen months? Why all this lengthy delay? Does the hon. Gentleman further realise that in my constituency there are people who have suffered from flooding


more than once and who daily dread another catastrophe? Will he persuade his right hon. Friend to stop behaving like a broody hen and to put forward proposals which will end for ever the threat to property, homes and livelihoods in my constituency?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: As I have said, the decision should be given within two weeks. I should have thought that that would satisfy the hon. Gentleman. It is an extremely costly scheme, which is why some time has had to be taken in deciding.

Agricultural Machinery (Safety Regulations)

Mr. Loveys: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will issue to his district officers a schedule of agricultural machinery that comes under the safety regulations.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: This information is contained in explanatory leaflets which we issue to all officers engaged on safety work.

Mr. Loveys: Is my hon. Friend aware that, as the detailed interpretation of safety regulations is left to individual district officers without the guidance of a full schedule, there is a lack of uniformity over the country as a whole in applying the regulations to certain types of machinery?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I do not think that there is a lack of uniformity. We are taking steps to have all the various regulations amalgamated. All the officers concerned with this matter are very carefully trained and fully understand the regulations.

Faroese Fishing Limits

Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what effect the extension of the Faroese fishing limits will have on the United Kingdom fishing industry; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Soames: Negotiations with the Danish Government on the future arrangements for fishing by British vessels around the Faroe Islands started today and I cannot speculate about the outcome.

Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but it seems that this move towards an extension of limits will go on. Is he aware that many fishermen, in Aberdeenshire particularly, who have been as much affected, if not more so, by an extension of the Faroese limits, feel strongly that this process cannot go on and on without our taking some sort of reciprocal action to safeguard, expand and conserve our native fishing industry within the extended limits of our own territorial waters?

Mr. Soames: I assure my hon. Friend that I am well aware of the importance of these waters and of these talks to the middle-water fishing industry.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Even though the Minister cannot speculate on the outcome of these talks, will he at least state who the delegates are, their names and status and the agenda for the talks so that we may know what is the purpose of the talks, as they have been kept a dead secret up to the present moment?

Mr. Soames: It has been well known for some time that these talks would take place, although the time was not known. A delegation has come over from Denmark consisting of representatives from the Faroes and from the Danish Government. The talks will be continuing during this week on the question of the limits round the Faroes.

Fowl Pest

Sir A. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proportion of the country's poultry has now been protected from fowl pest by the use of approved vaccine.

Mr. Hilton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state, to the nearest convenient date, the percentage of poultry keepers who have applied for vaccine to combat fowl pest, the number of poultry vaccinated, and the cost to his Department of this vaccine; and if he will make a statement on the effects of vaccination against fowl pest.

Mr. Soames: Since 5th November, last year, my Department has sold some 32 million doses of subsidised vaccine purchased at a cost of approximately £170,000 and resold to poultry-keepers at just under ½d. per dose for about £64,000. It is estimated that not more


than about 10 per cent. of poultry-keepers in England and Wales have applied for vaccine, and that protection has been given to not more than about one-quarter of the turnover of poultry in the country during this period.
The organisations representing the poultry industry, and in particular the County Fowl Pest Committees, have helped greatly in publicising the use of the vaccine, but the response so far from poultry-keepers has been disappointing. The vaccine we are using is, in general, proving to be very effective against fowl pest. There have been cases of vaccinated flocks going down with the disease, but this is not unexpected while such a high proportion of our birds remain unvaccinated, and where vaccinated birds are exposed to a very heavy weight of infection as they are in some parts of the country today. This is why it is so vital that many million more birds must be vaccinated in the next six weeks if the risk of a serious spread of disease is to be avoided when the slaughter policy comes to an end on 31st March.

Sir A. Hurd: I wholly agree with what my right hon. Friend has said and feel as disappointed as he does. Cannot we rub it in more effectively to poultry keepers, now that the weather is a little open, that they must protect themselves by the end of March and that no longer will the Government provide compensation on slaughter through fowl pest and that it rests with the industry as well as with the Ministry to get on with this job, attend the demonstrations, see how the job is done, and find out that it is not all that difficult or expensive?

Mr. Soames: I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. I hope that his Question and the Answer to it will receive suitable publicity in the poultry industry. We have sent to every known poultry keeper in England and Wales a leaflet about the scheme and an application form for the vaccine.

Mr. Hilton: I am sure that the Minister will agree with me that this is a most depressing report——

Mr. Speaker: We must have questions at Question Time, not speeches.

Mr. Hilton: Will the Minister agree that the report is really depressing since the vaccination of poultry started in this

country? Is he satisfied that all the vaccine used is of the required standard? Is he considering whether to make vaccination compulsory in view of the small percentage of poultry keepers availing themselves of this method of trying to combat fowl pest?

Mr. Soames: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the efficacy of the vaccine is not in doubt. What has happened is that an insufficient number of poultry keepers has taken advantage of it. We should like to see an 85 per cent. coverage. I hope and believe that, when both the effects of this scheme and of failure to carry out vaccination are fully understood, we shall get a much better coverage than hitherto.

Mr. Hilton: What steps does the right hon. Gentleman propose to take to put over to poultry keepers, especially the smaller ones, the value of having poultry vaccinated? This seems to be the real difficulty. There must be more advertising of the value of vaccination.

Mr. Soames: Apart from what I said about circularising known poultry keepers, the National Fowl Pest Campaign Committee is organising an intensive campaign to be launched within the remaining weeks of this month before the slaughter policy ends on 31st March. We need to have 14 million doses of vaccine taken up weekly to get adequate coverage.

Severe Weather Conditions (Losses)

Sir A. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to what extent the snow and frost in January affected the home supply to the markets of eggs, milk, meat, potatoes and vegetables; and what estimate he has made of the losses sustained by farmers.

Mr. Soames: Supplies of many vegetables have been reduced by crop damage and harvesting difficulties. Eggs and potatoes have also been affected to some extent. Supplies of meat and liquid milk have been well maintained. In many parts of the country the unusually severe weather has called for a high degree of human endeavour and ingenuity to keep supplies flowing off the farm and into the distribution chain. Farmers in some parts have undoubtedly suffered serious losses. I am not in a position to make a reliable


assessment of the overall loss, but the situation to date appears to be far less serious than in 1947.

Sir A. Hurd: Will my right hon. Friend take every opportunity he can in public of paying credit to the farm-workers and farmers, who have done a magnificent job in keeping things going in feeding and watering stock? Is it not rather remarkable that he has not had to give us calamitous figures of the losses in livestock and in vegetable crops? Does he not regard it as great testimony to the ingenuity and perseverance of the farming community that he does not have a much worse story to tell?

Mr. Soames: Yes, that is indeed so. We are certain that the situation to date in regard to losses is far less serious than it was in 1947.

Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that the Opposition also would like to be associated with his remarks concerning the magnificent work which our farmers and farmworkers have done in a very serious situation?

Mr. Lipton: Does the Minister propose to make any estimate of the quantities of livestock which perished miserably on Dartmoor through being frozen to death during the last few weeks?

Mr. Soames: Inevitably, there have been losses of livestock in some hill areas; it is inevitable in a winter like this.

Swine Fever

Miss Quennell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is aware that the long duration and widespread application of the swine fever restrictions on the movement of weaners and fatteners is causing financial hardship among pig breeders and is being interpreted as a device for diminishing his Department's financial liability in readiness for the commencement of compensating payments, beginning next month; and if he will give an assurance that these restrictions will be lifted as soon as practicable.

Mr. Soames: The incidence of swine fever in 1962 was considerably higher than in previous years and it is important that it be reduced in order

to provide the best possible prospect that the forthcoming slaughter policy will speedily eradicate the disease. The imposition of area restrictions is a well proved method of reducing the incidence of the disease. I realise that these restrictions involve hardship and I can assure my hon. Friend that they are lifted as soon as it is safe to do so. I am sure that pig producers understand that the measures taken to eradicate the disease are in their interests as much as in the Exchequer's

Miss Quennell: In thanking my right hon. Friend for his Answer, may I ask whether he is aware that in areas where there has been an outbreak, and in more distant areas, the movement of pigs and particularly of weaners and fatteners has been virtually prohibited for weeks?

Mr. Soames: I assure my hon. Friend that we do not maintain these restrictions unnecessarily. The whole industry realises the importance of the new policy, which we will be starting in March, of trying to eradicate the disease. It is essential to set the scene and to get the disease at as low a level as possible before we begin so that it may succeed as quickly as possible in the interests of the industry as a whole.

Miss Quennell: Will my right hon. Friend keep all the present arrangements constantly under review to see whether their working can be modified or improved in any way as we go along?

Mr. Soames: I assure my hon. Friend that movement restrictions in all the counties are constantly reviewed. We have lifted eight recently and two more are coming off this week.

Sugar Beet

Mr. Hilton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the estimated tonnage of sugar beet lost because of the recent severe wintry conditions; and what was the subsequent loss in revenue to farmers.

Mr. Soames: It is estimated that about 350,000 tons of sugar beet are still in the ground. The British Sugar Corporation is taking samples to see whether there is sufficient of it suitable for processing to justify opening a factory.

Mr. Hilton: Is the Minister aware that many thousands of tons of sugar beet are still in the ground in Norfolk, including my constituency, and that the loss to small farmers, in particular, who have not been able to get the beet into the factories for processing is extremely serious and will make all the difference between profit and loss in their present year's accounts? Is the Minister considering taking this matter into account in this year's Price Review?

Mr. Soames: The figure which I have given represents about 6 per cent. of the total crop. The position is not the same for all farmers and I am advised that by far the majority arrange, in their own interests, to lift all their beet by the end of December and store it in roadside clamps pending delivery to the factory. Sugar beet is grown under contract and, as the hon. Member knows, there is no compensation for loss of crop.

Mr. Fell: Will my right hon. Friend consider making representations to some of the sugar beet factories in the areas most affected—particularly Cantley, in Norfolk—to keep open as long as they can in case the sugar beet can be got in?

Mr. Soames: If it is an economic operation—that is, if the sugar beet can be moved and the sugar content is sufficient—the British Sugar Corporation would reopen a factory.

Import Control

Mr. Peart: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in the proposed discussions on the future of British agriculture, import control will be considered.

Mr. Soames: Our policy on imports and our overseas trading arrangements are certainly relevant to a review of our system of agricultural support.

Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that this is one of the key issues concerning our deficiency payment system and support policy? Will he give it high priority?

Mr. Soames: As I have said, this is an integral part of our arrangements.

Mr. Paget: Will the Minister also consider the proposals of the Lucas Committee, which seem to me to be particularly appropriate in the present context?

Mr. Soames: There is to be a wide range of considerations.

Mr. Mawby: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we must have a sensible import policy and that if we do not our deficiency payments will be that much higher, thus raising other problems?

Horticultural Marketing

Mr. Peart: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now make a statement on the future of horticultural marketing.

Mr. Soames: I have already arranged for a fact-finding survey of wholesale horticultural markets. This is being conducted by my Department and the Department of Agriculture for Scotland. As a first step, local authorities have been asked to reply to a questionnaire covering the location and use of markets, the accommodation provided, plans for future development and other matters. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I are setting up an interdepartmental committee to consider the results of this survey as soon as they are available and to discuss them with all the interests concerned.

Mr. Peart: The Minister is always setting up committees and fact-finding bodies. Why does he not take action? We all know the facts. Is it not time that something was done in view of the dissolution of the Horticultural Marketing Council?

Mr. Soames: This matter is not related to the dissolution of the Horticultural Marketing Council. It is a question of markets under the control of local authorities throughout the country. With few exceptions, little has been done over the years to modernise these markets. The survey questionnaire which is being issued to all local authorities has the purpose of seeking their ideas about what should be done to modernise the markets, the majority of which, it should not be forgotten, are under the control of local authorities.

Mr. Peart: Whilst we recognise that markets are out of date, is the Minister not aware that this is only part of the problem? When will there be a major attack on the whole problem of horticulture, including marketing? Why does not the Minister do something?

Mr. Soames: I do not quite know what major attack the hon. Member has in mind, in which direction it would go, what flank it would turn and how much research it would involve. We all realise the vital importance of horticultural marketing to the horticultural industry as a whole, and we have its needs constantly in mind.

Sir G. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that anxiety in this matter is not confined only to the benches opposite? Has he read, for example, Lord Stonham's lengthy article in the Grower, last week, or the lengthy contribution by the chairman of the Fruit Committee of the National Farmers' Union in Berrow's Worcester Journal Agricultural Supplement, also last week, drawing attention to this one cardinal factor? Is he aware that French, Italian and German investment in horticultural markets has been hugely greater than ours in the last few years, thereby diminishing the competitive position of our growers, notably apple growers in Worcestershire?

Mr. Soames: I fully realise that the advent of the Common Market did provide a considerable spur for greater investment in horticultural markets on the Continent of Europe.

Mr. J. Wells: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Question on the Paper, using the word "marketing", deals with a much broader subject than that of provincial markets on which he has just given an Answer, and would he please have a more satisfactory statement to make to the House on Friday next week?

Mr. Soames: I do not think my hon. Friend would disagree that horticultural markets are a very great part of horticultural marketing.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTH-EAST

South-West and West Durham

Mr. Boyden: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what measures the Lord President has advised Her Majesty's Government to take to reduce unemployment in, and check migration from, south-west and west Durham since his appointment.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Science (Mr. Denzil Freeth): My noble Friend cannot disclose the advice he may tender to his colleagues. The measures on which the Government decide in the light of my noble Friend's advice will normally be announced by the Departmental Ministers responsible for implementing them.

Mr. Boyden: Does the Parliamentary Secretary's noble Friend, and for that matter the Parliamentary Secretary himself, know where south-west Durham is? Will he take note of the fact that Aycliffe is not south-west Durham and that a great many things need to be done much further west in south-west Durham?

Mr. Freeth: I fully accept that fact that south and south-west Durham includes more than the locality to which the hon. Member referred.

Local Employment Act

Mr. Boyden: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what account he takes of the operation of the Local Employment Act in considering the special problems of the North-East.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: My noble Friend attaches great importance to the Act and its operation in considering these problems.

Mr. Boyden: How is it that in 1960 nothing more was required to deal with local unemployment than the Local Employment Act, when at that particular time unemployment in my constituency was 1,600? Is the Minister aware that, thanks to the success of the Act, it is now 5,000? What is he proposing to do about it? Is he proposing to extend the Act or to alter it?

Mr. Freeth: As I said in answer to the previous Question, any proposals which were made and which involved amending legislation would naturally be announced, if they were to be announced, by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

Tees-side (Airport)

Mr. W. T. Rodgers: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what steps the Lord President of


the Council is taking to assess the cost of providing an international airport to serve Tees-side in relation to the cost of implementing the Local Employment Act on Tees-side.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: My noble Friend is considering the adequacy of the existing airport facilities and air services for the needs of the region. I am not sure that I understand the latter part of the Question; the desirability or otherwise of an airport is not an alternative to designation as a development district, nor can the cost of the latter course be assessed, since it would depend on the number of assisted projects there.

Mr. Rodgers: I am very grateful to hear that the Lord President of the Council is considering this matter, but is it not the case that while short-term remedial measures under the Local Employment Act are desirable, whatever their cost may be, it is important that we should improve the long-term infrastructure of the area? Therefore, would not giving this international airport priority and making finance available make a direct contribution towards solving this problem?

Mr. Freeth: When my noble Friend was in the North-East representations were made to him both as to the lack of an airport to serve Tees-side and also the inadequacy of the services to the Continent from the existing airports. These he will naturally consider. My noble Friend is fully seized of the importance of adequate communications of all types as part of the infrastructure of growth in the North-East.

Rail Services and Advance Factories

Mr. W. T. Rodgers: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what steps are being taken to assess the relative advantages of providing improved rail services in the North-East area and of providing advance factories for permanent employment in isolated communities.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: My noble Friend attaches great importance to the provision of good communications of all types within the North-Eastern area, and accepts the value of the provision of advance factories in suitable places, but

he regards these policies as complementary and not as alternatives and cannot therefore assess their relative advantages.

Mr. Rodgers: It is good to hear they are regarded as complementary; it is very much the case. But surely the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that it is very foolish at a time when we want to improve communications in the area and when the arrival of new industries in the area is dependent upon these there should be proposals to close down railway lines, when the main purpose of the present time should be to improve rail communications, especially in the growth areas? Will the Parliamentary Secretary give an undertaking that a proper survey will be carried out to show the future needs for railways and that decisions about closing them down will not be simply based upon present traffic which is available for them?

Mr. Freeth: Of course, British Railways' comprehensive proposals for reshaping the railway system will not be available for some time yet and, therefore, the Government do not know what further closures may be proposed. I can, however, tell the hon. Member that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has set up an inter-Departmental Working Party to study the impact of these proposals when it receives them.

Middlesbrough (Visit of Lord President)

Mr. Bottomley: asked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science, as representing the Lord President of the Council if he will make a further statement about the visit of the Lord President of the Council to Middlesbrough.

Mr. Denzil Freeth: When my noble Friend visited Middlesbrough recently, he was given a very clear and helpful picture of local problems by representatives of the corporation. This was part of a series of fact-gathering tours in the North-East, and there is no special statement to make about it at this stage.

Mr. Bottomley: Will the Parliamentary Secretary convey to his noble Friend that the cause of unemployment in the North-East is Government policy and that his reported criticism of local leadership is very much resented?

Mr. Freeth: I could not possibly accept the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF AVIATION

B.O.A.C. (Inquiry)

Mr. Shepherd: asked the Minister of Aviation whether he has given further consideration to the inquiry into the affairs of the British Overseas Airways Corporation; and whether he is satisfied that the scope and nature of the inquiry is adequate to deal with the problems involved.

The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Julian Amery): Yes, Sir.

Mr. Shepherd: Is my right hon. Friend really telling the House that he thinks it is desirable to have an inquiry of this nature by only one accountant for a corporation having capital of hundreds of millions and having worldwide ramifications? Does he really believe that this report, which must inevitably involve the highest level of management, will really command confidence?

Mr. Amery: I have told Mr. Corbett that he is free to call in outside experts to help him whenever he wishes. I understand that he has done so on a number of occasions. I prefer to leave Mr. Corbett to write his report in any way he thinks fit, having taken all the advice which he himself thinks necessary.

Mr. Rankin: Is it not the case that the right hon. Gentleman during the debate said that this report was to be to him? Am I correct in assuming he is going to bring it to Parliament before he takes any further steps?

Mr. Amery: I am awaiting first of all Mr. Corbett's report, which is to be a report to me, and I will then, of course, tell the House about—and no doubt discuss with the House—any steps I may take beyond that.

Freighter Aircraft

Mr. McMaster: asked the Minister of Aviation when he expects to place an order for a tactical freighter aircraft to meet the requirement numbered O.R. 351.

Mr. Stratton Mills: asked the Minister of Aviation if he will now announce particulars of the plans to replace Beverley and Hastings aircraft.

Mr. J. Amery: I expect to make a statement shortly.

Mr. McMaster: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the concern felt in the aircraft manufacturing industry at the great delay in the project, particularly as over the past weekend alone at Short Bros. and Harland in my constituency more than 200 design staff are being laid off? There is great fear that, if these design men go abroad, this would break up a balanced design and construction unit which is a very valuable part of the industry.

Mr. Amery: I am well aware of the anxiety which is felt in the industry about this whole question, and I hope that it will not be more than a few days now before I give my answer.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Will my right hon. Friend explain that the delay is over the placing of the order for this requirement and is not a matter of considering whether the project should go on or not?

Mi. Amery: I think it would be better if I did not try to anticipate the statement I am going to make, but I am in broad sympathy with what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Paget: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have been expecting a decision shortly for about four years, and that in that process any replacement becomes obsolete before it even gets on to the drawing board?

Mr. Amery: No. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is for once on the wrong leg. [Interruption.] I am not saying we are postponing a decision but that the need for a replacement is a proper criterion to adopt. There will be a time by which the Beverley and Hastings aircraft must be replaced. It has not been necessary until now to arrive at a decision, and indeed it has been wise not to have anticipated that decision. In taking the decision we have, of course, to evaluate all the different aspects of this problem and to produce the very best possible replacement. This is the time to do it.

Tees-side (Airport)

Mr. Bottomley: asked the Minister of Aviation whether it has now been decided to establish an airport on Tees-side.

Mr. Amery: There are difficult problems of air traffic control is trying to meet the R.A.F. requirements at Middleton St. George and at the same time providing for civil airlines' scheduled services. Scheduled is a word which I would underline. I am, however, examining with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air whether it would be practicable to extend the present facilities for civil aircraft at this particular airfield.

Mr. Bottomley: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask whether it is possible for him to give further consideration to transferring the whole of the R.A.F. station over to civil purposes?

Mr. Amery: I will certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. It is a rather difficult problem.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this question has been asked on several occasions during the past ten years and that we have always had the reply that there are difficulties and obstacles in the way—for example, difficulties about Customs—and now there are said to be difficulties on various grounds? Is it not about time that Tees-side was provided with an adequate air service? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have no adequate air service on the North-East Coast at all, even at Wolsingham in Northumberland?

Mr. Amery: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that this is a very difficult question. I remember that about a year ago the Minister of Aviation asked a Question of the Secretary of State for Air on the subject, and the Secretary of State for Air returned an answer which I am not sure the present Minister of Aviation would very much like.

Aircraft Industry

Mr. Lee: asked the Minister of Aviation whether he is aware of the concern and uncertainty which now pre-

vails among employees in the aircraft industry; and whether he will make a statement as to future prospects and the size of the labour force.

Mr. Amery: I am in close touch with both sides of the industry and am, of course, aware of their views. Some of the concern that has been expressed is, I think, exaggerated. It is true that the labour force has fallen somewhat during the last year, but it is still larger than three years ago. Government expenditure in the industry is likely to remain high and I am confident about the future prospects of the industry although, of course, these must depend to a substantial extent on its success in gaining export orders.

Mr. Lee: While we are pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman's optimism, might I ask him whether he would agree that we are now in a difficult period in which such issues as the decision on Skybolt as against Polaris and the whole question of the V-bomber force itself are causing great apprehension? Will he at the earliest possible moment give us a more considered and detailed statement, which would probably help people on both sides of industry?

Mr. Amery: I will certainly do my best. Meanwhile, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recall that at least we have during the last six months placed military orders for the VC10 and project studies for the P.1154 and have had the Concord project accepted, and there has been a good deal of forward movement across the board.

Mr. Rankin: The right hon. Gentleman attributed some of the difficulties to the lack of export orders. Could he tell us what his Department does in helping, for example, the sales of the Trident against the Boeing 727?

Mr. Amery: It is Government policy to assist export orders in every way we can, and the officials at our embassies abroad, on the commercial side and on the air side, do their best to help. We have had some quite favourable comments from the industry recently on the contribution that we have made.

Mr. Lee: Could the right hon. Gentleman use this occasion to say anything


about Blue Steel? We are all wondering what the Government's attitude to it is. It concerns this Question very much in relation to employment on the project.

Mr. Amery: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to table a Question about that, and I will do my best to answer it.

Air Traffic Control Officers

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of of Aviation if he will inquire into the causes of unrest and discontent which presently exist among the civil air traffic control officers in the employment of his Department, with a view to remedying them.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation (Mr. Neil Marten): No, Sir. I see no reason to institute a special inquiry. Facilities for consultation already exist in the Departmental Whitley machinery.

Mr. Rankin: A few minutes ago the Minister of Aviation referred to the air traffic control difficulties in establishing an airport on Tees-side. Does he realise that those difficulties arise from the fact that, owing to this discontent, only 800 officers are now employed on the control side as against the minimum of 1,000 required if safety regulations and the demands of traffic are adequately to be met?

Mr. Marten: I am certainly not unaware of the feelings of these people, but I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that in broad principle it would be better to use the existing machinery to express feelings of that sort.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Leaving the machinery aside, is my hon. Friend satisfied, in view of the tremendous responsibility carried by the men with their remuneration and general conditions of work compared with other leading countries? Will he look into this?

Mr. Marten: A pay claim by the air traffic control officers was recently decided by the Civil Service arbitration tribunal. The tribunal awarded an increase in pay averaging 6 per cent. and the award has now been implemented. But I will certainly look into what my hon. Friend says.

Chartered Civil Flights

Mr. Dempsey: asked the Minister of Aviation whether he will seek powers to protect passengers on chartered civil flights who have paid their fares from the failure of airline companies to convey them to their destination.

Mr. Marten: No, Sir. This is a matter of contract between the passenger and the airline or travel agent. But before granting a licence, the Air Transport Licensing Board is required to take account of the fitness of an operator to perform the service for which he has applied.

Mr. Dempsey: Would not the Minister even condemn this iniquitous practice whereby people pay the fare for a flight to New York over a period of nine to twelve months in order to meet relatives they have not seen for a long time and can then he told only a few weeks before the aircraft is due to leave that there is no room for them in the plane and they are discarded? Is not that a practice about which the Government should be concerned, and should not the Ministry of Aviation do something to protect our people against extortion on the part of American companies?

Mr. Marten: I have great sympathy for cases like that, but it is open to any aggrieved passenger to make a representation to the Air Transport Licensing Board under Section 4 of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act, 1960, and the Board then considers the case and reports to my right hon. Friend. But the hon. Gentleman must bear in mind that a great number of the people going on trips of this sort have a contractual relationship with the organisers of tours or charters and not a contractual relationship with the airlines.

Mr. Dempsey: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that by the time the mechanics have been gone into the flight has gone and returned and these people are still waiting? Cannot we do something to help our own citizens in such a situation? Ought not the Minister to have some authority to ensure that our citizens receive fair play at the hands of these companies in respect of charter flights?

Mr. Marten: I have a great deal of sympathy for these people, but I would also point out that they must take the necessary action themselves.

P.1127 and P.1154 Aircraft

Sir A. V. Harvey: asked the Minister of Aviation what orders have now been placed for the P.1127 and P.1154 aircraft respectively.

Mr. Amery: Orders have been placed for 15 P.1127 aircraft. These are for our own research and development purposes and for the programme we are jointly undertaking with the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America. This joint programme is designed to obtain logistic and operational experience in the V.T.O.L. field. A contract for a project study has been placed for the P.1154 aircraft. This aircraft is intended as a Hunter and possibly a Sea Vixen replacement.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a number of countries which could afford to buy the P.1127 are unable to spend the vast sums required to buy the P.1154? Does he not think it would be a good thing to have more of the simpler types in the Royal Air Force to be used as shop windows for the export business? Would he take into account that in the P.1154 Britain has a great lead on every other country in the world and that the longer this matter is delayed, the sooner the Americans and the Germans will catch up with us, and they are cashing in on our knowledge of the P.1127? Will my right hon. Friend ensure that a decision is taken, and taken quickly?

Mr. Amery: I can assure my hon. Friend that there is no hold-up of any sort with regard to the P.1154. We are pressing on with this as fast as we can, but until the project study is completed, we cannot take a decision about the next phase. The question of more P.1127s for the Royal Air Force is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air.

Oral Answers to Questions — RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Attorney-General whether he will introduce legislation to prevent magistrates giving decisions indicative of racial discrimination.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): No. There is no reason to think that any action is necessary, but, if it were, legislation would not be the appropriate remedy. If a magistrate shows himself to be unfitted for judical office by reason of bias, whether concerning racial discrimination or otherwise, it is open to my noble friend the Lord Chancellor to remove him from the Commission of the Peace.

Mr. Fletcher: Has the hon. and learned Gentleman's attention been drawn to a case in Nottingham recently where an English couple were told by the chairman of the magistrates that they could apply for the custody of their two white children, now in the care of the local authority, if they moved away from a district with a coloured population in which they are now living? Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that public manifestations of racial prejudice of this kind by magistrates are very undesirable?

The Solicitor-General: I agree that the remark was unfortunate. My noble Friend called for a full report and for the full magistrate's notes of the occasion. He asked for the full statement made by the chairman of the magistrates. On consideration of the whole matter, however, my noble Friend did not feel justified in removing this magistrate from the commission.

Mr. Dugdale: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give consideration to the possibility of ensuring that persons who are known to have strong views in favour of racial discrimination are not appointed magistrates?

The Solicitor-General: I will see that the right hon. Gentleman's comment is brought to the attention of my noble Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — STRAYING ANIMALS (LIABILITY FOR DAMAGE)

Sir B. Janner: asked the Attorney-General whether his attention has been drawn to the judicial pronouncements in the cases of Gomberg v. Smith and Ellis v. Johnson; and if he will now take steps to implement in this respect the recommendation of the report of the


Lord Chancellor's Committee on the Law of Civil Liability for damage done by animals.

The Solicitor-General: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer which my hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General gave him on 4th February.

Sir B. Janner: Since that date, has the Solicitor-General's hon. and learned Friend reconsidered the matter in view of the decisions given in the courts in these two cases, where the judges strongly recommended a change in the law? Does not the Solicitor-General think that it is high time compensation was payable and that the law should see to it that injuries sustained in this way are regarded for purposes of compensation? Would the Solicitor-General support a Private Member's Bill to deal with this matter if it were introduced?

The Solicitor-General: My attention has been directed to these two cases. I can only repeat what the Attorney-General said. I agree that the law is unsatisfactory. I can only also repeat that there is no chance of the Government introducing legislation. If and when a private Member introduces legislation the hon. Gentleman's views will be taken into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE

Benefits (Loss of Documents)

Mr. Oram: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what steps he takes to ensure that no hardship is suffered by recipients of National Insurance benefits as a result of the loss in the post of documents sent from offices of his Department.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Niall Macpherson): I understand that the hon. Member is referring to lost postal drafts. Lost drafts may be replaced without delay if it appears that delay would cause hardship. Otherwise lengthier inquiries are made before replacement. If the hon. Member has any particular case in mind, perhaps he will let me have details and I will gladly look into it.

Mr. Oram: Since a week's delay in these payments can cause real hardship at times of sickness, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that sufficient publicity is given of the steps a recipient can take if an order does not turn up in the post on time? I understand that as much as seven weeks is needed for a full investigation. Is he satisfied that such a long time is necessary to clear up the matter?

Mr. Macpherson: I will look into the question of publicity for steps which may be taken, although I would have thought it obvious that any person who has lost a postal draft should go along to his local National Insurance office. Considering the vast number of postal drafts sent out yearly—about 35 million—it is obvious that some considerable time is necessary in order to sort them out and make sure that a draft has not already been paid. The hon. Gentleman would be surprised by the number of times drafts are found after being reported lost. For instance, many are found to have been cashed by a member of the recipient's household.

National Assistance (Mr. K. Rosser)

Mr. Tomney: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance whether he will ensure that National Assistance benefit is paid to Mr. K. Rosser, 46 Denham House, W.12, from 21st August to 1st December, 1962.

Mr. N. Macpherson: No, Sir. This is a matter for the National Assistance Board. I understand that the Chairman of the Board is writing to the hon. Member.

Mr. Tomney: Is the Minister aware that Mr. Rosser is a blind person and that his benefit was abruptly cut off on 25th August, apparently because he did not wish to train as an audio-typist at a centre outside London, to which the Ministry wished to send him? Mr. Rosser said that he preferred to train in London and he was subsequently granted a training position there which will become available next Whitsun. In these circumstances, he is surely entitled to benefit from 25th August to 1st December, during which period he maintained himself from his own resources. Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there was no reason why the Board should have


withheld benefit, since Mr. Rosser volunteered to be trained but wished to be trained near his home? A place is now available in London. Should not the Board now pay this benefit?

Mr. Macpherson: This is a matter for the National Assistance Board. It does not make retrospective payments but payments for current needs. If it had thought that in Mr. Rosser's case there was need it would have made a payment, but he was living at home and was not taking any course at the time to train himself to become independent.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Thalidomide

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Health what is the total number of babies now known to have been born in England and Wales with deformities attributable to the use of thalidomide during the pregnancy of their mothers; how many of these have been born since the end of August, 1962; what steps were taken to warn the mothers individually of the dangers involved in the use of this drug and to recover supplies of it from their homes; what progress is being made in the establishment of clinics for the training of the babies in the use of artificial limbs and other physical aids; and what assistance is provided to enable mothers living at some distance from such clinics to take their babies to them regularly.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Enoch Powell): Maximum 349, of whom 267 surviving; seven, of whom six surviving; I am sending the hon. Member details of the steps; at all limb-fitting centres, and special arm training at six centres and three special units; ambulance services are available where necessary.

Mr. Driberg: Does that figure of seven born since the end of August indicate, as has been stated, that these mothers must have continued to take the drug after its dangers were known and its use generally had been stopped? If so, why were they not warned individually?

Mr. Powell: These must be cases where the drug was taken—if that was the cause, which is not certain—these are cases where the drug may have been taken—that is why I used the word "maximum" in my answer—and where, therefore, the necessary knowledge had

not come to the attention of the person concerned.

Mrs. Braddock: Will the right hon. Gentleman make available a list of places where the service is available? Is he aware that in Liverpool, where there are quite a number of deformed children, there is a limb-fitting centre which should be used instead of the mothers having to go a long distance and wait a long time for their children to be trained? Will the Minister let us have that list and also look at other places which could be used for this service?

Mr. Powell: Limb fitting for these children takes place at all limb-fitting centres, but training in the use of arms is at the moment limited to a certain number of centres. I will gladly send the hon. Lady a list of them.

Sir G. Nicholson: Will my right hon. Friend help to clear up the confusion which exists in my mind, and which is fairly widespread, as to the measure of responsibility which his Department takes with regard to the use of drugs? To what extent is it responsible for warning people against dangerous drugs and for saying that drugs are not dangerous?

Mr. Powell: The responsibility for prescribing lies, in the individual case, with the doctor, but in this instance my Department took all measures which were practicably open to it to bring the relevant information to public notice as well as to the attention of the medical profession.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: Is this drug still available? If so, what special conditions are attached to its issue? Is there any special restriction upon its issue in prescription form, for instance?

Mr. Powell: I believe that at the moment it is not available, but I would rather answer that as a formal question.

Vaccination and Inoculation (Certificates)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health if he will now negotiate with the medical profession to ensure that certificates for vaccinations and inoculations needed for people spending holidays abroad shall be issued free from payment.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Bernard Braine): No, Sir.

Mr. Pavitt: Is it not anomalous that in a free service patients should have to pay for certificates? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that charges range from 10s. 6d. to 5 guineas and that there is no set fee? Is it not ridiculous that at this stage of the National Health Service one has to pay for a certificate in order to travel?

Mr. Braine: Vaccination is provided free because it is the general practitioner's obligation, under his terms of reference, to provide proper and necessary treatment. But we see no case for the provision, as part of the general medical services, of certificates for people who may need them in order to travel abroad.

Doctors (Locum Tenens)

Mr. Godman Irvine: asked the Minister of Health what steps he now proposes to take to ensure that a locum is provided when needed, as in the case of a general practitioner's sudden illness.

Mr. Braine: This is the contractual responsibility of the general practitioner.

Mr. Godman Irvine: Would not my hon. Friend agree that this can cause great hardship to a single-handed practitioner? Will he not further agree that it places a heavy burden on the practitioner's wife, who is worried not only about her husband's illness but also about the possibility of finding a suitable locum and whether the locum will remain throughout her husband's illness? Does not he agree that in these cases responsibility should be taken by the executive councils?

Mr. Braine: No, Sir. There may be particular cases, and if my hon. Friend will let me have details I will look into them. However, this is a matter for the profession itself, and existing agencies are available to assist practitioners in finding locums, notably the B.M.A. Bureau.

Mr. K. Robinson: Would not the Parliamentary Secretary agree that this is a problem to which the happiest solution, where practicable, is the establishment of group practices?

Mr. Braine: There may be something in what the hon. Members says.

NATIONAL ASSISTANCE (REGULATIONS)

3.30 p.m.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Niall Macpherson): I beg to move,
That the National Assistance (Determination of Need) Amendment Regulations 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 6th February, be approved.
The purpose of these Regulations is to increase National Assistance scale rates, for the tenth time since they first came into force in 1948, and the eighth since October, 1951. These proposals were recommended to me by the National Assistance Board, and, after I had approved them, they were submitted to Parliament in the form of the Regulations now before the House.
What is here proposed is to raise the National Assistance rates by 6s. for a single householder and 9s. for a married couple. These increases will bring the main National Assistance scale rates to 63s. 6d. for the single householder and 104s. 6d. for a married couple, to which, of course, a rent allowance is added, normally the actual amount of the rent paid less an assumed contribution from any adult other than the householder's wife.
The House will be aware that while National Insurance rates have already been increased three times since 1952, assistance scales have been increased six times. As recently as last September, assistance scales were raised by 4s. for the single householder and 5s. 6d. for the married couple. Those increases were more than enough at the time to compensate for the rise in the cost of living since April, 1961, when the last increases were made. Indeed, they actually covered the rise in the cost of living between April, 1961, and last month.
There are some who contend that National Assistance scales should be increased not only at the same time as National Insurance rates, but by the same amount. It will not have escaped their notice that the combined effect on the single householder rate of last September's increase of 4s. and the 6s. now proposed is to raise it by the same amount in all as the National Insurance rate for the single person.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: Not for the married couple.

Mr. Macpherson: I will come to that in a moment.
I would be surprised if they were to complain that part of the increase in National Assistance scales was given before the winter. I am sure they would not have wished us to delay that part merely in order to increase National Assistance scales now by the same amount as the National Insurance increase. Nor would it be reasonable to suggest that the National Insurance single rate should have been raised by 10s. last September, only seventeen months after the previous increase and when the cost of living had risen by the equivalent of only 3s.
Of course, when National Assistance scales increase by less than National Insurance benefits, people receiving National Assistance supplements are inclined to forget that they have had an intermediate increase and to complain, or at least to feel, even if they do not complain, that they have been somehow cheated of the full increase in National Insurance benefits—the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) talked about giving with one hand and taking away with the other when I announced these proposals. But that is not a complete description of what happens.
What actually happens is that a person receiving a payment from the National Assistance Board to supplement his National Insurance benefit receives a National Insurance increase which, under the 1948 Act, must be taken into account by the National Assistance Board in calculating what is due to him by way of supplement, which means that he loses that amount from his supplementary payment. However, the increase in National Assistance scales is then added, so that almost every person receiving a supplementary assistance payment will be better off to the extent of the increase in National Assistance scales. In other words, it is true that what is given with one hand is taken with the other, but the other hand then gives.
May I remind hon. Members that last November they were complaining that the number of people receiving National Assistance to supplement National Insurance pensions and other benefits

was too high and that the reason was that National Insurance pensions and other benefits were too low. If we increase National Assistance scale rates by the same amount as National Insurance benefits, the number getting supplements would not fall, but increase, because the higher National Assistance scales are in relation to National Insurance the more people apply for supplements.
Since hon. Members opposite were complaining last November that the number receiving assistance supplements was too high, I hope that they will not now complain that the result of these proposals and the provisions of the National Insurance Bill is that some people will cease to need assistance. How many will they be? The Board tells me that it is difficult to predict with precision, but that it will be about one in 50—not many compared with the 2 million or so recipients of assistance. These people will be better off than they were.
I should add that if a person comes "off the Board's books" as a result of the combined effect of the pensions and assistance increases he will be informed that he may still be eligible for refund of prescription and other health charges, and he will be advised to get in touch with the Board's officers if necessary.
The increases now being made in the other scale rates will follow the same pattern as last time. The House may like to be reminded, however, that those for dependants will bring the assistance for a family, even of a quite modest size, up to a sum which compares not unfavourably with the earnings of many unskilled workers. For instance, a man and his wife who have three children aged 12, 7 and 4, and who are paying 28s. a week in rent, will have their income, apart from 18s. in family allowances, brought up to £9 5s. a week. A widow with three children of similar ages and paying a similar rent will have her income brought up to £7 4s., plus 18s. in family allowances.
There are some who will get no immediate benefit from the increases. They are those who are affected by the so-called "wage-stop", which prevents a person from receiving more in assistance than he would have been earning in his usual occupation at present. I stress "at present", for he is not held


down to what he was earning when he was last in employment. It is what he would have been earning if he were now in employment in his usual occupation. This provision derives from the principle embodied in Section 9 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, which says:
An assistance grant shall not be made to meet the requirements of a person (including requirements to provide for any other person) for any period during which that person is engaged in remunerative full-time work …
Evidently, it was felt then, and it is felt stilt, that it would not be appropriate that a man should be better off without any work than when working. For that reason, the Labour Government of the day introduced the wage-stop in the National Assistance (Determination of Need) Regulations, 1948, and the Board has had to operate it ever since. That provision does not prevent the Board from meeting cases of exceptional need. The Board estimate that about one in eight of those unemployed at the December count was affected by the wage-stop. Of this number about half were receiving relatively small amounts in supplementation.
Whatever may be said about this duty which has been imposed on the Board, it is certainly not right to suggest that the Board is impoverishing these people. They are maintaining about the same standard of living as they were when the breadwinner was in work. The reason that wage-stop cases have increased is not that the Board is applying the provisions more harshly. It is not. It is because the standards of National Assistance have been rising more quickly than wages as a deliberate act of policy to relieve the lot of the poorest members of the community.
The hon. Member for Sowerby said that the married rates had not been raised relatively as much as the insurance married rates. That is so, and this is following the same pattern as before. In comparison with the 1948 rates, the increases have been very much the same. Perhaps I might give the House the figures. Compared with July, 1948, the new scale rate will represent an increase of 164·6 per cent. for a single person against an increase in the retail prices index of 70·6 per cent., while the new married rate represents an increase of 161·25 per cent., so they are very much in line. The married rate was, in fact, rather higher than the married rate of

benefit under the insurance scheme before this increase, but the difference is now the other way.
May I now say a word about the timing of the payments. It is obviously better to synchronise the dates so that everyone will get some benefit at the same time. There are over 2 million cases to be individually assessed, and, clearly, the task is more complicated when pension and benefit increases are being made at about the same time, as the changes in them have to be taken into account in reassessing each case affected.
For the great bulk of those affected. which is about 1¾ million, including retirement pensioners, other old people and widows, the increase in assistance scales will come into effect on 27th May, at the same time as the main benefit increases. For the much smaller and more fluctuating number of unemployed and sick receiving both benefit and assistance, if the National Insurance Bill, which was given a Third Reading by the House on 7th February, becomes law, the improved assistance rates will apply at the same time as the benefit increases take effect in March.
The House will expect me to say a word about the cost to the Exchequer. The gross cost of the proposals, if they were unaccompanied by the National Insurance increases, is estimated at £35 million, including about £1 million for increases in the allowances to people in Part III accommodation and the pocket money of those in hospital, which are consequential on the insurance benefit increases, not on the scale rate increases. As against this, insurance benefit increases totalling £45½ million will go to recipients of National Assistance and will have to be taken into account by the Board.
These proposals have to be considered alongside the intervening assistance increases of September, 1962, the cost of which, on the basis of cases now current, may be put at roughly £22 million in a full year. The combined cost to the Board of the two increases will thus be between £11 million and £12 million in a full year. The cost of assistance payments in 1963–64 will amount to well over £200 million—more than four times the cost in 1949–50. The overall effect of the two sets of assistance increases and of the insurance


increase will be that recipients of National Assistance will be receiving about £57 million more.
As I informed the House in reply to a Written Question last week, there were just over 2 million National Assistance allowances in payment last December—2,007,000 to be exact—and the January figure is 2,084,000. Some received only small supplementary payments. Others were entirely dependent on National Assistance. But in all these cases it was the scale rates which determined their eligibility for assistance, and that is why the scale rates are so important.

Miss Margaret Herbison: Would the right hon. Gentleman give us the actual increase in the actual cost to the National Assistance Board, and hence to the Exchequer, if the September and present increases were taken together? The right hon. Gentleman referred to £35 million, and to £22 million. I take it that £35 million was the gross figure, and £22 million the net, or perhaps it was the gross, if there had been no increases at this time in the benefits? What will be the real cost to the Exchequer?

Mr. Macpherson: The figure of £22 million was the net figure, because there was no increase at the time in insurance. What one has to do is to add £22 million and £35 million, which would be the cost of the present increases in assistance if there were no insurance increases, and deduct £45½ million, which is the cost of the National Insurance benefit which has to be taken into account.
It seems to me that people are rather apt to confuse two categories. There are those people who are living not much above the National Assistance level, and there are others who are eligible under the scale rates for assistance but do not apply. Some do not apply because, although they are eligible, they do not feel that they need further assistance. For example, mothers living with reasonably well-off children may not care to apply for supplements to their National Insurance pension. Others have capital or other resources which would be disregarded if they applied, but they prefer to remain independent as long as they can.
It is perhaps significant that less than one-tenth of supplemented retired pen-

sioners are living as members of someone's household. It may well be, therefore, that many more would be entitled to a small amount of supplementary assistance, but do not apply because they do not feel that they really need it. It is a paradox that, while some people refrain from applying to the Board through pride, others apply to the Board through pride because they do not want to be wholly dependent on their families. If I might put it ungrammatically, it really depends who or what people want to be independent of.
Of this, at any rate, I am sure. One reason why the numbers receiving assistance has grown is that gradually the reluctance to apply for assistance is thawing, largely, I think, because of the reputation which the Board's staff have acquired over the years for carrying out their duties in a sympathetic and considerate way. The idea that before an applicant could get regular assistance he or she would have to endure a catechism in a public place is virtually dead. Of course, in a case of emergency, one has to go to the "out-patients" department of the Board, to its public offices, bat in the ordinary way an inquiry made by filling up and posting a form brings a visit from an officer of the Board to the home of the applicant.
The regular tours of home visiting are a very important part of the service, especially during a hard winter like this. It is inevitable that in some instances the Board's staff have been unable this winter to complete their tours. On the one hand, sickness and snow have reduced their numbers—occasionally, many have not been able to get to work at all. On the other, the number of applications for assistance has greatly increased, largely because many people have been stood off from work owing to the severity of the weather. During the six weeks to 29th January the Board received 101,000 more applications—an increase of 30 per cent.—and gave 173,000 more interviews at its offices—an increase of 26 per cent—than in the corresponding period a year ago.
In spite of reduced staff and increased inside work—including, since I made my announcements, preparations for the increases in benefits and allowances—members of the staff have made over 50,000 more home visits during the six


weeks to 29th January than in the same six weeks last year. I have heard it said that such visits are sometimes unwelcome, even resented. Like other hon. Members, from time to time I visit constituents. Hon. Members will probably, like myself, have had the experience when calling on constituents of having been mistaken for an officer of the Board. I tell the House frankly—and I doubt whether my experience is unique; I certainly hope not—that when I told the householder who I was, he or she seemed more often disappointed than relieved. That is not to say that I was not welcomed. It is, rather, to say that the staff of the Board are generally welcomed.
Those who receive National Assistance have come to recognise that the officers of the Board are there to help and that it may very well be that in the course of their visits they will notice some want which they can and do meet without even being asked. In this way they have to exercise their discretion—an important part of the raison d'être of the Board. There has been some tendency of late to complain of lack of uniformity on the part of officers of the Board in exercising their discretion. The fact is that rigid uniformity and reasonable discretion are incompatible. I am sure, however, that the Board tries to achieve uniformity of approach—a common attitude of sympathy and helpfulness.
There cannot, however, be complete uniformity when judgment must be exercised by several thousand officers in relation to two million recipients varying widely in their individual circumstances. Certainly, no other approach could deal so effectively and flexibly with a great variety of special needs, varying from small occasional payments for minor household services to regular payments for an expensive special diet.
I hope, therefore, that no one will suggest today that there should be codification—not even for fuel. I appreciate keenly that in this exceptionally severe winter many poor people have been cold. I know, too, that the cost of coal has gone up—in some places more than in others. The increase in National Assistance scales which was made last September, of 4s. for a single householder and 5s. 6d. for a married couple, should have helped to meet the higher cost of fuel.

People tell me that there should have been special increases in the scale rates to meet the extra need for fuel due to the hard winter, or that there should have been a special bonus of some kind; say, a lump sum. But these suggestions confuse the purpose of scale rates with that of discretionary payments.
The scale rates are the same all the year round. They are intended to provide for the various needs and charges that arise at different times throughout the year. Where exceptional needs arise in individual cases, they can be met by discretionary payments. It may be said that a particularly hard winter bears heavily on all old and sick people alike and that, therefore, provision should be made for them all. But that is not so. Many old people—for example, those living with others—do not themselves have special expense for fuel. But where there is exceptional expense the Board uses its discretionary powers to help, and is at present doing so in more than 400,000 cases.
Where, say, an additional half-hundredweight of coal a week is needed, the extra allowance made is about 5s., but there is no fixed amount. The Board's officers consider cases individually and the amount may be larger or smaller according to need. The Board has given and is giving help with the cost of extra fuel which has had or needs to be bought on account of exceptionally cold weather wherever the applicant would otherwise suffer hardship. The Board has asked its officers to be on the look-out for cases of hardship and local old people's welfare committees and other voluntary organisations—for example, the Citizens' Advice Bureaux—have also undertaken to bring cases to their notice. Where a special need is found to exist additional help will be given where appropriate; for example, where an unusually large electricity bill must be met.
I feel that the House will welcome this evidence of co-operation between voluntary organisations and the Board. I am sure that, as time goes on, this co-operation will grow. The staff of the Board keep closely in touch with difficult cases and visit them regularly. But the officers cannot always know of new cases unless they find them or they are brought to their attention. They are


bound to rely to some extent on the co-operation of good neighbours to bring cases of need to their attention.

Mr. James Dempsey: How are these additional payments advertised to the recipients? Are there special forms by which the old folk can apply, or does the Board rely solely on someone informing it that an old person has no coal? What are the mechanics of this, because I understand that such allowances for really needy cases are not made known in the leaflet which I have studied. This is an important matter and the Minister should make the position abundantly clear.

Mr. Macpherson: On the first point, the National Assistance Board has been in operation for quite a long time and it is generally known that its function is to meet cases of special need. On the second point, the Board's officers regularly visit the difficult cases and then try to keep in touch; and they encourage voluntary bodies to do the same, and to bring special cases of need to their attention. The Board is bound to rely, to some extent, on that kind of co-operation, and, as I have said, during the course of their inquiries social workers inevitably come across cases of hardship. I hope that they will bring such cases immediately to the attention of the Board—not, if I may say so, in a censorious spirit, but in one of helpfulness and co-operation. Some social workers have done so and their co-operation has been greatly appreciated by the Board and by those who have benefited as a result.
The new rates, if the House approves them, are designed to help the poorest members of the community. Following on the increase made last September to take account of the rise in the cost of living, they represent a clear improvement in their standard of living, and I commend the Regulations with confidence to the House.

3.58 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: The Minister has had a most agreeable duty this afternoon and I am sure that the House will wish to congratulate him on having had such a successful term of office so far. The right hon. Gentleman

has done very little except introduce improvements; improvements in National Assistance and National Insurance benefits, improvements in war disability and comparable benefits have been announced. This has all been a nice experience indeed for any Minister of Pensions and National Insurance.
The House will be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having gone over the ground of the Regulations so carefully and for giving hon. Members an interesting description of the present activities of the officers of the Board to deal with the exceptional conditions which are confronting many of those who go to the Board for help. National Assistance is a large social service and the Minister referred to the number of allowances current at the January count; and I wish to say a few words about numbers.
As I understand, all references to numbers are references to the numbers of allowances and not necessarily to the numbers of people. That is a pitfall for a number of people, and even The Times the other day fell into the error of referring to the number of people receiving weekly allowances when the number was the number of allowances. In the case of married couples and others within the same household there is one allowance.
Mr. Hilary Marquand, when he was spokesman for this side on pensions matters, was constantly impressing upon the House that the number of allowances was smaller than the number of people. I always understood from him that we had to write up the number of allowances by about 25 per cent. in order to get at the number of people. I do not know what the number is, but if the Minister has information it would be interesting to know how many actual people—as distinct from the number of allowances—are receiving help from the National Assistance Board.
It is desirable that the country should know the full measure of the work of the National Assistance Board, and not be misled into thinking that 2,084,000 allowances in payment at the end of January represents 2,084,000 people. It is more than that—considerably more than that—and it would be a good thing to know exactly what the number is——

Mr. N. Macpherson: If the hon. Gentleman would like it, I can give him the figure. It is rather more than 25 per cent. The January figure is not yet available, but in December there were 427,000 wives and 541,000 children.

Mr. Houghton: There we are—we have the figures. And they are impressively greater than the number of allowances.
The central issue that these Regulations present to the House is whether National Assistance scales should be improved at the same time, and by the same amount, as National Insurance benefits. In theory, no, but, in practice, I think that the difficulties there are, and always will be, if National Insurance benefits are raised without some increase in National Assistance benefits at the same time represent common ground between us. When there has been any gap between the two, there has been a great deal more trouble even than there will be at the present time.
We know, and the Minister has again reminded us today, that National Assistance scales can and do go up at a time when National Insurance benefits are not being increased. The Minister has told us that since 1952 National Insurance benefits have gone up on three occasions and National Assistance on six occasions—and, indeed, of the ten times that National Assistance has been increased, four have been at a time when National Insurance benefits have not been increased at the same time.
We are, therefore, in the position that although National Assistance scales can be improved even when National Insurance benefits are not being raised, National Insurance benefits are never raised without some increase in National Assistance. That, of course, is happening again now.
Whatever may be the theory of the matter, the practical considerations are that as long as National Insurance and National Assistance remain as closely related as they are in cash value, and so closely associated in the public mind as doing much the same thing, we are likely to have to continue adjusting both at the same time. As long as the benefits under both National Insurance and National Assistance jostle each other on the border of poverty they will never get separated in our thoughts about social security.
Many people believe that both are related to minimum standards of living, and that the difference between them is that they are paid for by different methods. If any Government could carry the nation into a really substantial measure of social security, and get it to accept all the conditions for providing a retirement pension of, say, £10 a week, as of right, without means test, it would by no means follow that National Assistance would have to be increased by a corresponding amount. It is the proximity of the two levels of benefit that keeps them so closely tied in people's minds.
In theory, National Insurance is what the nation decides it can afford out of current resources to give guaranteed benefits, as of right, without test of need, in certain eventualities—sickness, unemployment, old age, and so on—and although these benefits may be below subsistence standards, or above, it is the national choice in guaranteed benefits by virtue of contributions. By ourselves paying contributions towards the benefits to others now our own benefits in due course are underwritten by those who follow on. That is what National Insurance is all about at the present time, on a "pay-as-you-go" basis.
National Assistance, on the other hand, is a safety net to take care of those who have slipped through the National Insurance scheme, or have fallen out of it, or have never been covered by it—and there are about 26,000 deserted wives in that category.
But, having looked at the difference in theory between National Insurance and National Assistance, the two things still cannot be separated. National Assistance is too much a substitute for, or supplement to, National Insurance to be regarded by people as something separate and distinct.
If, then, National Assistance is to be linked in practice with National Insurance, the question is whether it should move up by the same amount. I think that it is agreed, by what the Minister is now doing and by what has been done on every previous occasion, that, when National Insurance goes up, National Assistance must go up. The question is not whether it goes up at the same time—because it does, and has done—but whether it is to go up by the same


amount, which it sometimes has and sometimes has not.
Here, again, the theory of the matter is easier than practical experience shows, because improvements in the level of National Insurance benefits have so much to do with minimum standards, and come so close to National Assistance standards, that the two things become almost indistinguishable. We have at present an increase in the National Insurance rate for a single person from 57s. 6d. to 67s. 6d., but the current National Assistance scale for a single person is 57s. 6d. People therefore ask," If the National Insurance 57s. 6d. is going up to 67s. 6d., why is not the National Assistance 57s. 6d. going up to 67s. 6d. at the same time?" That is the question.
I know that the Minister will say that the National Assistance 57s. 6d. is subject to a rent addition, whereas the National Insurance 57s. 6d. is not. That is true, but the two amounts are associated in the public mind. The present National Insurance benefit for a married couple is 92s. 6d. National Assistance is 95s. 6d.—3s. a week more, plus the rent addition. On the face of it, one would expect the new National Assistance rate to rise at least to the new National Insurance rate of 109s. Many people say that it should increase by the same amount—16s. 6d.—to 112s. That is the view that hon. Members on this side of the House take on this occasion.
I am fortified in this view by no less weighty an opinion than that of the Halifax Courier. Hon. Members opposite may not attach as much importance as I do to that newspaper, but there is one hon. Member opposite who does-the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Maurice Macmillan). We both attach great importance to the weighty and reasonable opinions of the editor of this most estimable journal. Not only is that editor saying that the two rates should go up by the same amount and at the same time; he is expressing the hope that the sheer weight of numbers in this Chamber this afternoon will give the Minister a jolt severe enough to make him think again. There may be enough of us to provide the sheer weight of numbers to encourage the Minister to think again.
I have a letter here which was handed to me by my hon. Friend the Member

for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) and which ably expresses the point of view of the ordinary person—especially the person receiving national assistance. It says:
May I quote my own case. I worked in the docks all my life and, as you are no doubt aware, had no opportunity to qualify for superannuation. Because of this, I tried to continue working until my 70th birthday. Unfortunately, I was forced to retire just about three months short of this and applied for the pension. My wife and I were awarded a joint pension of £6 a week and on application to the National Assistance Board were granted a further 25s. a week, making a total of £7 5s. a week.
Out of this we pay £2 11s. rent; £1 2s. per week coal; a minimum of 14s. per week electricity and 7s. per week gas, making a total of £4 14 per week. We are, therefore, left with £2 11s. to cover food, clothing, shoe repairs, washing, renovations, etc., which I think you will agree does not permit any but the most meagre living conditions. Thus, the full 16s. 6d. increase would be a great help.
I have been a good citizen and worked all my life paying all taxes and have, fortunately, been free from illness. Thus, I have not been a drain on the Insurance scheme for either sick or unemployment benefit, but as things appear to be moving now I am not to be allowed to enjoy the full benefits now because I have not been fortunate enough to work for an employer who supports a superannuation scheme, or one of the privileged people with a private income.
That is how the position strikes the ordinary person on National Assistance. He is not able to distinguish between National Insurance benefits, which are given, as of right, in return for contributions, and National Assistance, which is not—because these two things are inextricably bound together in any thinking about social security at present. When one rate does not rise with the other there is a cry that there is a catch in it somewhere.
There is a suggestion in part of the Press that when the Minister announced an increase in National Insurance benefit and said that the National Assistance Board would make proposals for increases in National Assistance at the same time, those who heard the news thought that they would get the benefit of a full National Insurance increase, although they were on National Assistance. It does not turn out to be so.
There is a further point that the Minister must bear in mind in this connection. The increases that he is proposing in these Regulations have to be looked at in economic, not to mention


electoral terms, as well as in terms of social advance. These better National Assistance scales were no more initiated by the National Assistance Board than by the man in the moon. They represent part of the boost to consumer demand. I said before, and I firmly believe it to be true, that the present Minister of Pensions is the only one who has been summoned to the Cabinet Room and instructed to increase his benefits.
These increases must be looked at in conjunction with the reductions in Purchase Tax, the release of another £40 million in post-war credits, the easement in hire-purchase conditions, the reduction in the Bank Rate, and the rest. These new scales are part of an unprecedented increase in public expenditure between one Budget and another. They represent one means of raising the purchasing power of over 2 million of those who can afford to buy very little. Therefore, there is a case for improving the position of these people by more and not by less than those on National Insurance—certainly not by less. So, on these quite pragmatic grounds, we support the view that the increases in National Assistance should be at least as great as the increases in National Insurance.
The Minister said very little about the basis upon which these increases are proposed. He told us that the increases of last September covered increases in the retail price index up to last month. That was to show that the increases now being proposed are a bonus. They are over and above the rise in the cost of living. They are something extra. They are a windfall. This confirms my belief that the windfall is part of the economic measures being taken by the Government in present circumstances.
I do not know whether it is a coincidence, but this happens to be the fourth time upon which the married couple has received an increase of 9s. a week. There seems to be some magic about that figure. It has been the amount of the increase in National Assistance scales on four occasions out of ten. The Minister did not tell us what, in his opinion, was the change in circumstances which had taken place since last July which led the Government to make these proposals at this time. He was very vague and ambiguous about the reason for the increase, and for the amount proposed.
The right hon. Gentleman threw a little light on the question why the increase for the married couple—taking last September's proposals and the new proposals together—was 2s. a week less than the 16s. 6d. by which National Insurance benefits are to be raised, but I am sure that he will not expect those who feel a grievance about this to be satisfied by his saying, "To give a full explanation of this discrepancy I must take you back to 1948", which is what he did. He cannot take the September increase with the current ones, add them together and say, "There you are; they are the equivalent of National Insurance increases", when one of them manifestly is not.
In any case, the Minister was making proposals last September independently of any increase in National Insurance benefits. Therefore, his predecessor was presumably making an objective judgment of what the increases should be, having regard to the circumstances of that time and ignoring any change at the same moment in National Insurance benefits.
It would be interesting to hear from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary what is at the back of all this. If my interpretation of the present situation is not correct, what is the real explanation? The figures that we think should be included in these Regulations would give only a very modest total of National Assistance. We would give to a single person a scale benefit of 67s. 6d., which with the average rent addition would produce a total of £4 9s. 6d. for a single householder. There is nothing outrageous about that. For a married couple the National Assistance scale of 112s. with a rent addition of 22s. would give a total of £6 14s. There is nothing outrageous about that. So what we are proposing in terms of subsistence will be demonstrably moderate in the eyes of all who understand the meaning of these figures in terms of domestic expenditure and the current level of the cost of living.
We are sorry that the Minister has not returned to the practice of devising a new special rate for blind persons. It is true that he is giving them proportionate increases, but there is an especial feeling of sympathy for and understanding of the problems of blind persons, so much


so that in the Finance Bill last year, after many years of unsuccessful representations to the Government, a special Income Tax relief was introduced for the first time for blind persons. I think that it would be the wish of the House that we should be especially generous in providing for the welfare of blind persons, which these scales do not do.
The Minister referred to the very large number of people who would get benefit under the Regulations, although he said that some people would not get full benefit or any benefit at all. He referred to discretionary grants and to the discretionary grant for coal. A good deal that the Minister said about the work of his officials during this very severe winter was, in a measure, reassuring. It is good to know that the Board's officers, despite the terrible conditions in which they had to get about, have gone round to see whether people were suffering hardship and to do what they could to relieve it.
I am sure that the Minister was right to give a special word of praise to the voluntary organisations, because I know that in my constituency and elsewhere the old people's welfare organisations have come together in an emergency programme of visitation and of providing relief for old, disabled and sick people who would otherwise be suffering acute hardship in this bitterly cold weather. We assume, therefore, that in cases where the fuel grant was not enough it could be increased. Could we have a tam assurance that in so far as it is thought possible all those who have wanted extra money for fuel have had it, so that there have been no empty grates and people going to bed in the middle of the afternoon because they could not afford to keep the gas fire going for a reasonable time?
Can we be assured that we need have no visions of that kind of disgraceful destitution? I know that this has meant that officers of the Board have had to get about under difficult conditions, but I think that all Members feel acutely uncomfortable about the plight of many people during the recent cold weather and wonder how they manage to get by. We wonder whether discretionary grants could not in general have been increased of late so as to give many people who

need extra assistance still more help in time of difficulty.
The Minister also referred to the wage-stop and there is now apparently growing interest in its effect. It is true that the higher the National Assistance scale, the more the wage-stop is likely to affect people on unemployment benefit and that the more people there are on unemployment benefit the more they are likely to be stopped under this rule.
There was an article in The Times this morning on this subject and a very reasonable article about it in the News of the World. Mr. Kenneth Barrett, who writes on this subject in the News of the World, covers what I call the more responsible part of the News of the World and his comments on the effect of the wage-stop were, I think, reasonable and to the point. The Minister has now told us that about one in eight are stopped. This is a very difficult question. It operates only in the case of unemployment, and the Minister has explained that it would not be desirable to have people getting more money when unemployed than when they are at work.
It might also be argued that it would not be desirable for them to have more money when they are sick than when they are at work. This kind of thing can be carried too far. The assumption is that an unemployed person would prefer to remain unemployed to get the benefit of higher National Assistance scales than go to work and get a somewhat lower wage. I think that all these cases want looking at on their merits. In the case of very large families it may be that the family allowance system is not doing its job, or it may be that fathers of not so large families, who are able to earn only low rates of pay because of ill-health, or loss of skill or from other special reasons, are not able to earn anything like the average wage for adults.
I think that the House will not be happy to hear that families are likely to be suffering privation because of the stop on account of the wage limit. I think that the Minister said that where there was exceptional hardship—I do not like the word "exceptional" in this matter—additional allowances could be granted. I feel very doubtful about the justification for continuing the wage-stop in the present circumstances. I think that


it is better to deal with this problem not by cutting National Assistance but by finding those concerned different work, or better work or seeing that they get work. The wage system may be failing, the family allowance system may not be doing its full job in the case of large families, but to cut National Assistance seems very harsh in individual cases.
The Minister did not mention the disregards. They do not figure in these Regulations. But some people will find themselves docked of same of their National Assistance on account of an increase in the war disability pension. That is because the disregard will come into operation. Is not it time to remove entirely the limit on the amount of war disability pensions? Since when has a war disability pension been money to live on?
The war disability pension is a pension for loss of faculty. It is some compensation for permanent injury or damage, or because the capacity for the enjoyment of life has been affected. To regard it as part of the living expenses and to put a limit on National Assistance for that reason is particularly unwarranted under present conditions. The total disregards, as we know, are 30s. But the disregard for a war disability pension is also 30s. To some people it seems that they are caught by the disregard when the pension is increased.
Another aspect of all this is that only 16 per cent, of the applicants for National Assistance appear to have more than £100 saved. Many of those who come for National Assistance may have slender resources. But there is no doubt that a lot of them suffer greatly when the National Assistance Board suggests that they should draw on that capital in order to supplement their current resources. Most people regard what bit of savings they may have as something standing between them and complete dependence on the State, or upon friends, or upon charity.
Now I come to the question of the operative date. When the Minister made his announcement I described the delay as "cruel", and I have no reason to alter that word. It is cruel to keep people waiting until the end of May for something they desperately need now. This has been the worst winter in living

memory. I have no doubt that all the persons on National Assistance who have gone through it have suffered acutely from privation and hardship. It seems that the National Assistance Scheme, on a national basis, fails to respond to the urgent need for general improvement. National Assistance has now become the prisoner of the order books, like National Insurance. Cynics may say that the whole operation has been carefully stage-managed by the Chancellor. Some people would say that the Chancellor has to have regard to the fact that already he has a supplementary Estimate for over £20 million for National Assistance increases last September, and he has probably said that he does not want another one.
All this is timed to take effect in another financial year. That suggests to me that even though it had been possible to bring this relief earlier the Chancellor did not want it done before the beginning of another financial year. Otherwise, it is a strange commentary on the National Assistance Board that while it can keep its officers on call for 24 hours, weekends included, in order to relieve hardship in emergency cases, when it comes to the relief of hardship generally it takes four months to do so. I think that a sad commentary on the problems of administration and in this respect the national scheme responds less quickly than did local schemes in bygone days. None of us would, want to return to those days, for all sorts of reasons, but we want a national scheme capable of responding more quickly to the needs of the poorest in the land.
In general, these Regulations, while acceptable so far as they go, show up once again the big problems of the relationship between National Assistance and National Insurance. I see that some current opinion on this matter suggests that a more satisfactory way of supplementing National Insurance benefits should be found. We are in search of that. I have no doubt that hon. Members opposite are also in search of it. I see that the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) is in the Chamber. On a number of occasions he has suggested that benefits to older persons should be increased as of right, because on the whole they are the people who have to go to the National


Assistance Board. But increases for older persons as such can be just as unselective as increases for everybody else. In the present circumstances we are all looking for means of supplementing standard benefits under the National Insurance Scheme in a way which would be acceptable to those concerned, and which would not bear the unpalatable label which "National Assistance" is in the minds of so many people. It will be for the future to see what may be made of this problem. Certainly, National Assistance is not a satisfactory way in which to do this job.
The Minister has rightly paid tribute to the sympathetic approach and consideration of all the officers of the Board. I give them the highest praise. With other hon. Members, I am in a position to see the work of the National Assistance Board at quite close quarters, and I am aware of the trouble they take. We appreciate their understanding of the needs and feelings of individuals. In a recent case I was astonished at the way in which the Chairman of the National Assistance Board went out of his way to conceal from some proud person that she was actually receiving National Assistance. If assistance is called a "pension" or even a "supplementary pension", it is acceptable. But as National Assistance—no.
These are difficult problems, notwithstanding the best will in the world being shown by the National Assistance Board officers towards those whom it is their duty to serve and to help. I believe that there are other ways in which this matter could be tackled, but this is not a suitable moment to discuss alternative schemes. I am clear in my own mind that the whole country is looking for some way other than National Assistance. I know that our industrial history and the history of the Poor Law, even today and so long afterwards, bedevil the approach to all matters requiring a test of means.
Other countries have been free of that. Australia and New Zealand find it possible to impose a means test without the kind of "hang-over" which we have from the bad days of the Industrial Revolution and the cruel and crude methods of the Poor Law. But we have to live

with our own history. We cannot take over the history of Australia and New Zealand. We must have regard to the feelings of people, which are important in these matters—conspicuously important—if we are to have a contented public opinion about our schemes of social security.
I hope that the endeavours of all concerned will continue in an attempt to solve the great problem of finding a different way to supplement pensions than by the National Assistance Board. As I say, we are not in the least detracting from the work which it does. Indeed, the praise which we bestow on it is sincere and is renewed every time we debate Regulations of this kind. But this way of doing things is not in accord with the conscience of British people and we wish to find a better way. Meantime, we thank the Minister for bringing forward these Regulations. We had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would have removed one source of widespread discontent, the disparity between the increase in National Assistance benefits compared with National Insurance.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. Charles Curran: Like the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), I am reluctant to look this "gift horse" in the mouth. With the hon. Gentleman, and, I suppose, everyone else in the Chamber, I welcome the increases so far as they go. All the same, now that we are being asked to approve these increases—it is the tenth time since National Assistance began that we have had to do this—I think that we should look rather narrowly at what is involved in our doing so.
I know that within the limits of his office the Minister can give an explanation for the discrepancy in the increase of insurance benefits compared with National Assistance. It is an explanation which, taken in a vacuum, is credible—I will not say plausible. But I also agree emphatically with what was said by the hon. Member for Sowerby about it. No matter what explanation may come out of the Ministry, ordinary citizens find it completely incomprehensible that one lot of benefits should go up by X and another lot by X minus Y. No matter what explanation the Minister gives, or what explanation any of us


gives, I do not believe it will carry any conviction.
I urge the Minister to see whether it is possible to bridge this gap. I invite him to consider this. When it was decided to increase the retirement pension by 16s. 6d. a week for a married couple, why did we do that? The plain answer is that we thought that a married couple deserved a standard of living which could be obtained only by an increase of 16s. 6d. That was basic, human reason. If that is a good argument for a couple on a retirement pension, why is it not a good argument for a couple on National Assistance? How can it be argued that an increase which is regarded as necessary for one couple should be denied for another? The Minister's reasons, which may be valid in an economic vacuum, make no sense as soon as we get outside Westminster.
I suggest that these dilemmas and anomalies which constantly confront us here and elsewhere in the social services are all particular illustrations of the great general fact that we are the captives of what was done in 1948. I am not going back into ancient history. Nor do I impugn the motives of those who created the National Insurance Act of 1948 and set up the National Assistance Board. Fifteen years later, however, it is perfectly plain that their basic assumption—flat-rate universal benefits, the assumption that people's needs can be measured out in equal sums—has not worked. The fact that today we are approving further increases in National Assistance surely conclusively demonstrates that all the assumptions of 1948 have turned out wrong.
As we all know, the Beveridge basis was that National Insurance benefits should be enough by themselves to enable anyone to live without other resources. That basis does not work. It never has worked from the beginning. It is not working now. How much longer are we to go on pretending that somehow or other it can be made to work and that all we have to do is to supplement it from time to time by putting up National Assistance scales? We have been doing that year after year for fifteen years. It is time that we overhauled the whole structure radically.
Are we to continue indefinitely with the scheme enacted in 1948, and to keep

on plugging the holes in it year after year by putting more and more money into National Assistance? National Assistance has now become permanently necessary in order to keep the National Insurance Scheme afloat. So far from being something which would wither away, it has got bigger and bigger. The fact that we have now to increase for the tenth time suggests that we must reexamine the basis on which we tried to create national insurance in 1948.
Next, I want to look at some of the implications of these Regulations. I listened attentively to what was said by the Minister and by the hon. Member for Sowerby. I endorse all that was said by them about the humanity, the sympathy and the kindly energy of the National Assistance Board officers I have not the slightest desire to speak about the Board in any language save that of eulogy. Nevertheless, I wish to ask some questions about how these discretionary powers of theirs are used. We heard the Minister's explanation about the discretionary grant for fuel. We heard why it is not given as a matter of right.
Can we be told more about these discretionary powers? I take it that regional officers of the Board receive from headquarters in London some instruction about how the discretionary powers are to be operated. Is there any reason why those instructions should not he made available to hon. Members? Is there any reason why we should not see the formulas which the Board provide for its officers? We are today making a decision which affects so many of our fellow citizens; and we have a right to know exactly how these discretionary powers are applied.
I repeat that I am not making any imputation at all against the energy, the kindliness, the sympathy or the administrative efficiency of the Board. Not at all. But as Members of this House we ought to know in detail what the instructions are. I hope that when
the Joint Parliamentary Secretary replies to the debate we shall be told that they will be made available to us so that we can see exactly what they are.
Now I want to press the Minister about the operation of the wage-stop as it applies to men who have large families. Subject to correction, I understand that the wage-stop is operated by reference to a list of disregards which does not include


family allowances. I understand that when the Board imposes the wage-stop on a family it looks at the net earnings and includes the family allowances in them. I am open to be contradicted, but I understand that the rule derives from regulations made in 1948.
I am not disputing the general principle of the wage-stop. I agree that we cannot use public money for the purpose of making people better off when they are not working than when they are working. But inside that general principle—I hope the Ministry will give us a sympathetic hearing on this—I draw attention to the unemployed man with a large family. He receives quite a substantial sum in family allowances. Therefore, he comes against the wage-stop.
Why should not family allowances be treated as a disregard? There may be a reason. If there is, I should like to hear it. But I cannot see it.
The worst poverty in this country is not so much among old people as among large families where the father has a small wage. It was for the purpose of tackling poverty in that kind of household that the family allowances system was invented. I ask the Minister to recognise that by reckoning family allowances for the wage-stop he is penalising children.
Let it be said honestly that if we exclude family allowances from consideration of the wage-stop we will undoubtedly give some money to idlers who have large families. It is true that the possession of a large family is not necessarily a guarantee of social virtue. If we consequently treat the allowances as a disregard, some people with large families will get a financial inducement not to do any work. But I suggest that this is a risk which we must run.
When we are administering the Welfare State, and, in particular, when we are administering National Assistance, we cannot afford to surround the conditions of payment with too many restrictions. We cannot afford to put a labyrinth of barbed wire fencing around National Assistance to keep out the occasional cheat and skrimshanker. We must accept a certain amount of cheating, false pretences and skrimshanking. It is better to

put up with that than to penalise people who need help and will not be getting it.
It is certainly better to put up with a certain amount of that rather than penalise the children. Whatever we may say about the father who dodges work, the children are in no way to blame for him. We have no right to visit our disapproval of him upon his children. But unless we treat family allowances as a disregard, that is what we are doing.
Family allowances are another example in the social services of the folly of universality, the folly of giving money evenly and uniformly to everybody with no reference to their need. Obviously some families need the allowances desperately. Equally obviously, other families do not. I know that it can be argued, and always is argued, that since the allowances rank as part of the family's income, the rich family pays back the allowance in taxation. That seems to me to be no defence at all for universality. The money which is taken back in taxation ought to be going to the poor families who do not pay tax and who ought to have that money.
When we reconstruct the Welfare State and stop this process of patching, when we apply ourselves, as one of these days we must, to rearranging our ideas about welfare so that people who need help get it, and get it generously, then we shall ensure that in helping them we are not obliged to limit our generosity by spreading it over people who do not need it.
Obviously, the Minister cannot undertake to reconstruct the Welfare State this afternoon. But I hope that, within the limits available to him, he will give us satisfaction on the two points which I have raised—details about the Board's orders in respect of discretionary allowances and an assurance that in future he will exclude family allowances from the determination of income for the wage-stop.

4.55 p.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) on the robust way in which he supported our criticism of the discrepancy between the increases in the basic pension and the proposed increases in National Assistance. I entirely agree with him


that we should not remain prisoners of the Beveridge Report for the rest of our political lives. That is why we on this side of the House have carried out some of the basic rethinking and the radical overhaul of our ideas about insurance which are reflected in our new national superannuation plan.
Some fundamental long-term planning is necessary to avoid a perpetuation of this living on the brink of poverty to which so many people have, unfortunately, become accustomed. I am only sorry that the Government did not follow our example in making that radical overhaul, but, instead, put before the country a graduated pensions scheme which was a mockery of ours and the success of which, in the Government's eyes, lies in the fact that a large majority of those entitled to join it have, in fact, contracted out.

Lord Balniel: We are eagerly awaiting this radical reform, When will it be published?

Mrs. Castle: It was published well before the last General Election in massive detail, explained on the wireless in great detail by our spokesman and explained by me at street corners endlessly, at the same time as I exposed the confidence trick which lies behind the Government's substitute of the graduated pensions scheme.

Lord Balniel: rose—

Mrs. Castle: I will not permit the hon. Gentleman to interrupt again. I will gladly send him a copy of the scheme at my own expense, but this is not the moment to debate it. I merely made the reference in passing and in reply to the hon. Member for Uxbridge.
None the less, I agree with the hon. Member very much in the plea which he made to the Minister to reconsider once again, in the light of the realities of the present situation, the proposal which he is putting before the House that the increase in the National Assistance scale should be less than in the increase in the basic pension. I do so for the reasons which he advanced; the Government's action may sound logical within the walls of Westminster, but it is totally incomprehensible to the ordinary pensioner who has been waiting so long, and has still to wait for months, for the much-

needed increase in National Assistance scales, and to whom this appears like an operation in which the Government give with one hand and take away with the other from the people who most need help.
I am sure that in the last months hon. Members have had case after case of people on National Assistance whose scales were clearly totally inadequate. These were people in all sorts of circumstances. I have had them in my political surgery month after month. They came to me almost distracted, asking, "Could anybody possibly live on this sum?" One has had to admit that it was impossible to live on it. It is ludicrous for any of us to pretend that we could even begin to live a civilised life, or a life with the minimum comforts, on such a sum.
To these people it has come as a shock and a blow to find that the Government are repeating the process of addition and subtraction which to them seems like a refinement of cruelty. I have in my hand a letter which reached me before the new National Assistance scales were announced. It reads:
Will you kindly answer the following question: is the new increase we are to receive at the end of May genuine or will the supplementary pensions people step in as they did on the last increase and take part of it? I remember the last increase. I received 12s. 6d. for myself and wife. Immediately the supplementary pension was dropped by 7s. 6d. My increase was 5s. which meant that I was still 5s. worse off than I was when I had to retire through sickness at the age of 65 in January, 1960, as the cost of living had risen by 10s.
That is how it appeared to the ordinary pensioner, and I have had many letters on similar lines. I am sure that this is the experience of every hon. Member. We can only repeat to the Minister the plea that he should reconsider this point.
I know very well that some basic pensioners who are not in receipt of National Assistance feel rather differently about this. Some basic pensioners have written to me and said, "Is not the right way to deal with this to give us all an adequate basic pension and then there would not be the need for all this argument about National Assistance scales and supplementing the pension?"
There is a great deal in that. I have sympathy with that point of view. However, we have not as yet got a basic


pension that is adequate to live on. Until we do, the National Assistance scales will remain the criterion of adequacy. I repeat that even with these increases inadequacy will remain, and it will be all the more difficult to bear and all the more bitter in the minds of the recipients because their hopes were roused by an announcement of a 10s. increase.
I support what the hon. Member for Uxbridge said about discretionary payments. We know that local National Assistance Board officials for the most part do an excellent job, but they are working to a policy laid down from above. I listened with particular interest to what the Minister said about the fuel allowances, a question which I raised in the House when we discussed the National Insurance Bill. I was glad to see from the amount of time the Minister devoted to the question of fuel allowances in his speech that some of the points I raised have clearly gone home. Once again, he has attempted to answer them. Once again, he has claimed that there are 400,000 discretionary fuel allowances in payment at present.
The right hon. Gentleman reiterated his argument that the National Assistance Board is eagerly on the look-out for cases of hardship. He even said, I hope that voluntary organisations will draw the attention of the National Assistance Board to these cases. I hope that the officers will get round wherever they can and look for some old person who has not got enough fuel in the house to keep him warm and will leap to meet the need. We hope that other people will tell the Board's officers where this situation arises."
That will not do. It is, admittedly, the same answer as I received from the Chairman of the National Assistance Board when I wrote to him on this matter. He replied to me in these terms on 6th February:
I am very conscious that many old people will have had to buy extra coal during the very cold weather. As I explained in my letter of 14th January, our officers have been asked to be specially alert to recognise cases of hardship and I may add that local old people's welfare committees have also undertaken to bring cases to notice. Where a special need comes to light, an additional allowance will be given …
That all sounds very fine and dandy, but how does the curious fact arise in

my constituency that, as I have told the House before, when the Mayor of Blackburn launched an appeal for funds to provide old people with extra fuel and extra food, and got all kinds of organisations, including the school children in the borough, with the W.V.S. and every type of voluntary organisation, going out and bringing to her attention cases of need, she was able and, indeed, obliged within one week to issue 950 bags of coal? This was in the first week. Since that time, as funds have continued to come in, another large issue of bags of coal has been made.
If the National Assistance officers are specially alert, why was it ever necessary for this to be done out of charitable funds, particularly as appeals made in neighbouring boroughs in Lancashire have not been as generously responded to as they have in Blackburn? If they had been as generously responded to, these voluntary bodies would presumably have found just as many cases where in the discretion of those operating the scheme an extra bag of coal ought to be issued. There is clearly a very different standard in the mind of the Chairman of the National Assistance Board from that which exists in the hearts of the warmhearted individuals of Lancashire who, out of their own pockets, have been prepared to meet a need which they saw but which the Assistance Board did not.
I repeat what the hon. Member for Uxbridge said. There must be a failure here in the operation of discretionary allowances. That is why I have asked—and I repeat—that in winter weather of any kind, let alone the severe weather we have had this year, it ought to be part of the spirit of the current administration of the Assistance Board that an immediate instruction is issued by the Chairman for an extra issue of coal to be made, on the obvious and logical argument that we are all burning more coal, we all are burning more electricity, we are all burning more gas.
There is not an hon. Member whose fuel bills have not been doubled in these winter months. The electricity bill I received in January was exactly twice as large as the one I received in January of last year. That takes no account of the extra expenditure on coal or on gas. The bill I shall receive in March will


probably be even worse. Can any hon. Member honestly say that there is any old-age pensioner drawing National Assistance who is not automatically entitled to extra bags of coal? How dare we say that this should be left to discretion, since we do not use such a criterion to decide our own standards of comfort and endurance during these terrible winter months?
The necessary lead is not being given from the top, in the Assistance Board, to authorise officials to go out and do this job of looking after the old people in the way in which it ought to be done. I suggest that one of the reasons why there is not that spirit is that the spirit of cold financial calculation still guides the Minister's own policy and is summarised in these Regulations. It is a spirit of calculation which says, "Yes, 10s. on the basic pension, but only 6s. on the National Assistance scale". Is that the right or humane approach in a situation where prices of basic necessities are rising and where the prices of essentials have been increased this winter as never before?
I have here a letter I have received from a widow aged 64. She lives alone. At present she has a pension of 57s. 6d. a week, plus rent paid by the National Assistance Board. She writes in this way:
On the 30th January my Is. (two units) slot meter was changed to 2s. (one unit), which means I have to pay four times as much for what I use. This came as a shock to me, as I am not in a position to live a normal life and get out and associate with people (and buy newspapers, etc.) and I have no one belonging to me here …
I understand we are to get an increase of 10s. a week, less 4s. National Assistance in three months' time, but meantime I have to find about 14s. a week or more for electric alone. This is for using one 100 watt light, a little wireless …
There must be hundreds like me …
Is there anyone in the House who would even contemplate beginning to try to live on 57s. 6d. a week, with 14s. for electricity alone? She is totally alone in the world and unable to get out or about. She adds:
Is it justice that those not having to apply for assistance … should get 10s. but those who need it only actually get 6s.?
What answer can we send to a woman like this? What answer could any M.P. with a heart send to a woman like this,

except to say that he has got up in the House of Commons and protested against the failure to give women like this a fuel allowance, protested against the delay in bringing in these increases, and, not least, protested that when these increases come in the Minister has taken back 4s. from a widow like that?

5.10 p.m.

Lord Balniel: I am very glad to have this opportunity of following the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), because I, also, should like to say a word about these discretionary allowances, although I do not think that she will expect me to take exactly the same view about them that she did.
I should like to refer to that part of the hon. Lady's speech, but, before doing so, perhaps I should apologise for interrupting her speech so impolitely when she was talking about the great new radical reform which is being thought over by the hon. Lady and other hon. Members opposite, because, before she answered my question. I had not realised that she was referring to the old pension scheme which was laughed out of court and rejected by the electorate at the last election.
I thought that the hon. Lady was referring to the scheme which we have been led to understand by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) and the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) is to be published before so very long. I am afraid that I misunderstood the point when I asked the hon. Lady when this new reform was to be published.

Mrs. Castle: The extensions of that scheme to other beneficiaries, such as unemployment and sickness beneficiaries, has still to be considered, but the basic principles on which we think insurance should proceed were laid down by the National Superannuation Scheme, which was certainly not laughed out of court and which will certainly be welcomed by the electorate at the next election.

Lord Balniel: I do not want to take this argument too far, but it is interesting to note that the basic principles of the old scheme are to be reiterated in the new scheme.
The first point I wish to make is the one to which the hon. Lady referred,


about the very long time which persons on National Assistance have to wait for their increase. I think it right to comment that this is the shortest period during the entire history of the National Assistance Board before the increased benefit was paid. Indeed, it is not only the shortest period but is the shortest period by well over a month.
I wish to say, of course, that I welcome the general tenor of these Regulations, and I welcome, in common with other hon. Members on this side of the House, the fact that this is the eighth increase which has been made since the present Government came to office. I also welcome the fact that in money terms the National Assistance scale rates are now 110 per cent. above what they were in 1951 at a time when the cost of living rates have increased by 52 per cent. and average earnings have increased by 91 per cent.

Mr. Dempsey: They are not the real terms.

Lord Balniel: That is exactly the point that I was about to make had the hon. Gentleman listened.
A quick mathematician would have worked out that in real terms the National Assistance scale rates are about 50 per cent. above what they were when the present Government were returned to office. I am not raising these figures in order to claim any particular credit for the Government in this field; I am doing so because I want to relate the argument to that advanced as the central point of his speech by the hon. Member for Sowerby. The hon. Gentleman criticised the fact—and I understand his argument—that the increase in National Assistance scale rates on this occasion is less than the increase which is currently being undertaken through the National Insurance Bill in insurance benefits
When commenting upon the announcement last week the hon. Gentleman said:
Is not this the occasion for the right hon. Gentleman to announce increases in National Assistance equivalent to the increases in National Insurance.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th February, 1963; Vol. 671, c. 242.]
This was much the same point which the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn made during the course of her speech. But if both the hon. Lady and the hon.

Member for Sowerby, instead of taking a microscope and scrutinising these figures, were prepared to take a slightly broader perspective they would see that the increase in National Assistance scales since April, 1961, is exactly the same as the increase in insurance benefits since April, 1961. This seems to me, therefore, to meet the point which they were both making.
I personally did not follow the hon. Member for Sowerby in the argument which he advanced that National Assistance scale rates and insurance benefits should march in step and hand in hand. What I do think—and this is not, I believe, accepted by the Government—is that the National Assistance scale rates should march automatically in step with increases in the average industrial earnings in the country. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] In fact, this has happened almost consistently since the war. The increase in National Assistance scale rates rather more than echoes the increase in average industrial earnings, and I should be interested to hear the arguments against linking the National Assistance scale rates with the average industrial earnings in the country as a whole.
I wish to make one or two small points, and the first refers to the discretionary allowances commented on by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran). Of course, these allowances form only a small part of the total National Assistance. They amount to, say, £19 million out of a total of about £200 million. As the House knows, the discretionary allowances are paid for fuel bills, laundry, domestic help and such like. They are an extremely valuable element of the National Assistance system because they give it a flexibility which we in the House of Commons can afford to give to the National Assistance Board owing to the fact that we have complete confidence in the integrity, fairness and humanity of its officers.
I agree with my right hon. Friend that the very essence of these discretionary allowances is that they should be discretionary. I entirely accept his view that we should not try to codify and consolidate them. Flexibility enables officers of the Board to bring the greatest help to those in the greatest need, but


there is no doubt that more and more comment is being made by those interested in this field that there has been no overall study of the practice of the Assistance Board in awarding these discretionary allowances. There appear to be quite considerable geographical and regional variations.
I believe that I am right in saying that a study of the matter was undertaken in 1954, and I am not suggesting that there should be an outside review of discretionary allowances. What I am saying is that I think it is probably time that the Assistance Board itself undertook a review of its practice in awarding discretionary allowances. I, like other hon. Members, received a letter today from the London School of Economics asking that further information of a statistical nature should be published in the Reports of the National Assistance Board. This, I feel, sure would be widely welcomed if it could be done.
The second point I wish to make is with reference to the supplementary allowances for rent which are paid by the Assistance Board when people enter hospital or a residential home for old people. The practice of the Assistance Board when a person enters hospital is to continue to pay the supplementary assistance to meet rent for a period of twelve weeks. On the other hand, if a person enters a residential home, the practice of the Board, understandably, is rather different. In some cases, I understand, people are led to believe that the Assistance Board will not continue to pay supplementary allowances for rent. In other cases, and indeed more usually, the Board is prepared only to pay supplementary allowances for rent for a period of between three and four weeks.
These first few weeks when an elderly person enters a residential home are very difficult. These people are changing from a private life into a life led in a communal atmosphere. Very often they are ill. During those first few weeks when they are ill and they are confused by their surroundings they have to take a decision which will affect them for the rest of their lives. They have to decide whether they will remain in the residential home for the rest of their lives or try to return to their own homes within a few weeks or a few months. Should not the Board grant supplementary allow-

ances for rent for a rather longer period than for three or four weeks so that this decision by elderly people can be taken at more leisure instead of in a rather hurried and perhaps unsatisfactory way?
Hon. Members have frequently emphasised that everyone who has the misfortune of falling below subsistence levels, as defined by the Assistance Board, should claim the National Assistance rates to which he or she is entitled. We have all, on both sides of the House, urged people to claim the assistance to which they are entitled. Among the old people who have memories of a different form of administration it is absolutely essential that there should be a sense of confidence in the fairness, the humanity, the friendliness, the integrity and high order of administration of the Assistance Board. These qualities are extremely difficult to quantify. All we can do is to give a personal judgment, and in common with other hon. Members I have my own personal judgment as to the quality of Assistance Board officers.
But I read in the Evening Siandard of 7th February, in a leading article entitled "Social Stigma", the following words:
It must also be added that some National Assistance officers have a reputation of being extremely unpleasant to new claimants. There is no possible excuse for their conduct, and this must be remedied before the present Board can take its proper place as an essential and universally respected branch of the Welfare State.
I admit that my personal experience of National Assistance is confined to my constituency and is limited, and it is quite possible that the writer of that article is better informed than I am. But I should say that my personal experience—and it is borne out by every authoritative report I have read on the subject—is absolutely categorically opposite to the views expressed in that article.
At a time when it is most essential that we should encourage elderly people who are entitled to supplementary pension to apply for it, an article written in that frame of mind is completely deplorable and harmful to the interests of elderly people and those who are in the greatest need in our society.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. James Dempsey: I was interested in the Minister's attitude towards the nature of the increase. He knows that we all


welcome an increase, no matter how small. It is more than welcome in the homes of many old folk at the present time. My anxiety was to try to point out to the Minister how inadequate it is. After listening to speeches like that of the noble Lord the Member far Hertford (Lord Balniel), in which we were treated to an exercise in mental gymnastics in making comparisons between sets of pensions and between the 1940s and the 1960s without mentioning the hole in the and the fall in its value, I can only say that we are liable to be misled in dealing with the situation.
The people with whom we are concerned do not live on statistics nor on comparisons between the 1940s and the 1960s. They live on food, shelter and clothing. The question posed to hon. Members is whether we honestly believe that the Minister's suggestions are adequate to meet the present day needs of old folk. I have interviewed them and their organisations, and I have not met a single retirement pensioner or an organisation or any of the associations but protests about the inadequacy of this increase. I decided during the weekend to visit some of the old folk and I made the following note of the weekly budget of an old lady of 73 years of age, living in Scotland.
The weekly charge for each item was as follows.: 7s. for gas; 7s. for electricity, which is quite modest; 1s. for insurance; two bags of coal at £1 0s. 8d.; one dozen briquettes, 2s. 8d.; one packet of fire-lighters, 1s. 5d.; one gallon of oil, 2s. 4d.; ½1b. of tea. 3s. 10d.; 1 1b. of butter, 3s. 7d.; half-a-dozen eggs, 2s. 6d.; two loaves, 2s. 3d.; ½ 1b. dripping, 1 1d.; ½ 1b. ham, 2s. 6d.; milk for the week, 6s.; two packets of tea biscuits, 2s.; matches 4d.; milk puddings, 1s. 6d.; butcher's meat, 5s. This makes a total for that weekly budget of £3 12s. 6d., and it ignores soap, powders, fruit, potatoes, vegetables, clothes, shoes and all the other incidentals. I have also not mentioned the mutuality clubs to which payment is made for some of the household effects which are essential at that time of life.
The ladies whom I interviewed do not smoke or drink and had not been to the cinema for over twenty-five years. They do not even buy or read the papers.

They sit and knit for most of their time as pensioners. I am talking of pensioners who are excellent managers in their homes and not of people who are inclined to be wasteful. They are elderly people who are extremely frugal in every aspect of expenditure.
When we examine the increase suggested by the Minister we should relate it to the actual living costs of old folk and we should not trouble them with a bundle of wearisome statistics. This increase is inadequate to meet the needs. We have said that we welcome it, because it is better than the present rate, but the Minister should not indulge in smug complacency and tell us that all in the garden is well and that the old folk have something to look forward to for the rest of the year. They are sot even to receive the increase until the end of May and, as I have said before, by that time we shall discover that thousands of them will have died and will not have received one half-penny of the proposed 6s. What is most humiliating is to give them an increase with one hand and take it back off them with the other. Such will be the fate of probably 1¾ million old-age pensioners. This sort of treatment is humiliating and nauseating to most public representatives.
It is fair to say that since the 1940s there have been very few occasions when the increases in National Assistance did not correspond to the increases in retirement pensions. In the majority of cases the pension increase and the National Assistance increase equated each other. The Minister should realise that this request is not impossible; it is quite feasible. It has been practical for many years, and there is no reason why that practice should not be continued. As I tried to point out, the pensioners with whom we are concerned are the poorest people of all in our society. To deny them the additional 4s. is a very niggardly act indeed.
I hope that the Minister will pay attention to this matter. He should realise that we are dealing with one of the most challenging and serious problems of all time, the problem of the old folk. I am sorry, but I cannot agree with him—I should like to do so—that the discretionary payments in respect of coal are going as well as he maintains. I have had a long association with the Assistance


Board, and I know that this is something which has always been fobbed off. I am willing to accept the right hon. Gentleman's statement that in some cases a 5s. allowance has been made, but I come from a place where the cost of a bag of coal is 10s. 4d., not 5s. Therefore, he is still not meeting the need of old people for fuel by his discretionary payments when they are being made.
It is upsetting, to say the least, to find that local people who are interested in the old folk are promoting dances in their towns to which the admission is not money, but a bag of coal. When the bag of coal is deposited, it is taken to an old pensioner in desperate straits. That is what is happening in my part of Lanarkshire. If the old folk were aware of the generosity of the Assistance Board in helping them over the fuel crisis, there would be little necessity for this sort of thing.
Because of the weather that we have had, the problem of the old folk is more acute than ever. I have never met so many people who are really and truly touched by the present plight of the old people. Only yesterday collections were taken outside the churches to try to raise money to help the old people in their plight at this time of the year. This is unusual. I have never known it to happen before. It is indicative of the fact that people are alarmed at the plight of the old. There is no doubt that the weather has spotlighted it. Far too many people have up to now been indifferent about the problems confronting the old, but the elements are compelling them to sit up and realise that this is a very serious and vexing problem.
Many old people do not have a fire in the hearth. They are doing without a meal. They are living at starvation level. How the Minister expects to overcome this serious state of affairs by offering them another 6s. a week or less is beyond my comprehension. He must realise that this increase is totally inadequate. He should make up his mind to come back here very shortly and propose an additional increase of 4s. to ensure that National Assistance recipients will receive the same increase as other pensioners. They are pensioners and have to pay the same price for food and other commodities which pensioners who receive the 10s. weekly increase. So long

as the pension and supplement are synonymous, it is in the interest of the Minister to ensure that increases, when granted, should correspond in both respects.
I should be the last to detract from the difficulties of the Assistance Board. I know that its officers do a wonderful job in my constituency and in other parts of Lanarkshire but we have black sheep among its officers. We have them everywhere. It appears to me that as a result of some of their human weaknesses interviews can result in some old people being treated better than others, although such could be exceptional.
I see no real difficulty—I say this in all sincerity to the Minister—in granting an allowance for coal during the winter to old people in receipt of National Assistance. Where there is a will there is a way. We could overcome many difficulties by deciding that the plight of the old people shall be the primary consideration and not the administrative difficulties which might arise. In dealing with the problem of exceptional needs, I should like to see something more than the bald statement which appears in the appropriate form under the heading "Treatment of other income."
I should like the Minister to consider the possibility of giving an annual grant to old-age pensioner recipients for exceptional needs. I should like him to make it abundantly clear that the receipt of the extra nourishment allowance does not prejudice entitlement to a fuel allowance. The National Assistance provisions are so complicated and generalised that sometimes people in receipt of the extra nourishment allowance are ineligible for receipt of exceptional need grants for other purposes. I should be very pleased if the Minister would clarify the situation and state whether the extra nourishment allowance having been granted prejudices the right of a person to receiving a fuel allowance or some other allowance which the Assistance Board's officer is convinced is necessary.
In my own home town we have had to run cinema shows for years to raise money to provide old pensioners with a bag of coal at Christmas. I have done it for twelve years myself. I did not


realise that the Assistance Board was willing to come to the aid of old people and give them a coal allowance. I have discovered that I have been subsiding the Board with my efforts for about twelve years. This scheme is not widely known, nor is it generally publicised. I could give the Board names of very dignified pensioners who have never been visited with a view to ascertaining whether they required fuel. There is need for clarification here.
As I say, the shocking weather has spotlighted the coal shortage facing old pensioners. I am sure that the House would be glad of some distinct statement of policy about what the Assistance Board's attitude is to the question of making a fuel allowance. It should be made clear whether a person is eligible to be considered for a fuel allowance, if he is in receipt of the extra nourishment grant. I cannot emphasise too often the importance of this matter, because it raises a vexed question in the management of the Board's services in most parts of the country.
Having said that, I wish to ask the Minister to consider a category of beneficiaries who are in receipt of National Assistance. I am talking for the moment only of pensioners. I know that there are people who are unemployed, but we hope that their problem is merely temporary and that they will soon be restored to employment. I am talking of the old souls who will never work again, the poorer section of the community, who are in receipt of supplementary payments. Is there no hope that at some time in the future these people will get an additional weekly allowance of some kind to enable them to overcome their difficulties during the winter?
That kind of assistance has been given before. It used to be given by the local authorities. Prior to National Assistance, it was their practice to supplement the payments given by the former social welfare committees. Would it not be a Christian act, at least, to give to these old men and women during the winter period, the most trying time of all, an extra allowance or ex gratia payment to help them to provide the necessities of life?
When dealing with human beings, we must treat them in the most sympathetic way imaginable. My view is that, in tackling this problem, we should be willing to do so even at the expense of other sections of the community. One has only to knock at door after door to discover the unbelievable conditions in which old folk live. I have been to homes where there has not been a fire for a week. This is a shocking way to treat our old folks, and a poor reward for their past services to the country.
Good Samaritans in the community have asked me whether it is not possible for pensioners to be housed next door to them, so that they can give the old folks a share of their coal. The old folks are depending upon and appealing for charity after a lifetime of work and service to the nation. It should not be charity. It should be their right and their just entitlement to have an adequate allowance upon which to live and with which to purchase the necessities of life, especially during a bad winter such as we have been having.
I should like to know from the Minister whether the long-term sick beneficiary is exempt from the principle of the wage-stop. Because of the unemployment situation in my part of the country, it is extraordinarily difficult for those recovering from tuberculosis, for example, to find employment. Most of us realise, of course, that they receive a special type of payment because they are recovering from a long-term illness. I should like the Minister to explain whether that type of payment is exempt from the wage-stop.
This is another bone of contention. I understand that people are exempted from it in some places, but I should like the Minister to clarify whether these folks, when recovering from such an illness and unable to find employment because of the heavy demand for the few jobs available in the locality, are exempted from the restrictive influences of the wages stop principle.
Like other hon. Members, I am concerned that the increase is not to be paid until May. Now is the time when the old folks need it, when they require additional commodities and services and a warmer standard of life, and yet this is the time when they are denied it. On future occasions, I should like the


Minister to consider telescoping the waiting period into a much shorter interval, so that these old people can enjoy the increase that much the sooner. Even though it might be inadequate, it is nevertheless better than nothing at all. Six shillings would mean a lot to them, but 10s. would be much more welcome.
There is one other point which should be considered in connection with the assessing of the living costs of old people. Far too much emphasis is placed upon a cost of living which includes, for example, reductions in the prices of motor cars. The old folk do not benefit from this. My view is that in considering pensions and National Insurance, if it is intended to have some regard to the cost of living, attention should be paid to the commodities which this section of the community is likely to use and on which these people are likely to spend their pensions and supplementary payments.
Old-age pensioners are inclined to feel that these are matters which should be given every consideration. I hope that when the Minister comes back to the House in the very near future he will say that these items, among others, have been given consideration, that we will have a clarified policy and that a system will be operated which assures the elderly section of the community of decent living standards in the twilight of their life.

5.46 p.m.

Sir Stephen McAdden: I intervene briefly to draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who, I understand, is to reply to the debate, to a matter which has been brought to my attention only during the past weekend. For that reason, I regret that I have not been able to give details to my hon. Friend in writing.
First, however, I support my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), whose speech must have commanded support on both sides, in saying that the time has come for a fairly general review of the whole question, not only of National Assistance but of the National Insurance Scheme as well. I support also what my hon. Friend said about the importance of trying to get out of people's minds the doctrine of universality, under which unless every-

body can have something nobody can have anything. My hon. Friend was quite right in urging us to recognise that problems of destitution and of poverty are personal problems which cannot be settled by a general rule which is meant to apply to everybody, but must have personal and sympathetic treatment.
That having been said, I wish to draw my hon. Friend's attention to a case which now comes before the National Assistance Board, particularly because of the recent bad weather. I know an odd-job gardener aged 76. He has never drawn a penny of pension, because he never contributed for it, or a penny of National Assistance. He has maintained himself to the age of 76 and, given decent weather and the continuance of his physical strength, he will go on keeping himself as Long as he can work without being a burden or a drain upon anyone.
It having been impossible for him to work since the week before Christmas, this man now goes, at last, in desperation—not because he wants to—to the National Assistance Board, whose officials, very properly and generously, come at once to see him and say that they will do whatever they can for him. They make him a generous allowance within the scale. I do not complain about their treatment of him or the allowance which the Board makes, but its officials have to point out that under their rules they can begin to pay him only from the date upon which he made application for National Assistance.
So here we have the case of an old fellow of 76 who wants to go on working. The Assistance Board is prevented from recognising, as everybody knows to be the fact, that nobody has been able to do any gardening since before Christmas. It is not possible for the Board to say, "All right, we will backdate your payments to the week before Christmas". The Board is bound by the regulation which states that payment can be made only from the date of application.
I should have thought that, for personal problems of this kind, it ought to be possible for greater discretionary power to be vested in the Board's officers so that in individual personal cases such as this, which are particularly prevalent during a severe winter such as we have had, they may be able to act outside the bounds of the normal type of regulation. When it is clearly demonstrable that a


man like this has lived upon his meagre savings since Christmas and only in desperation has gone to the Board, it ought to be possible to back-date his payments so that he can put back in the Post Office the few "quid" he has had to draw out to maintain himself during this time.
I hope very much that my hon. Friend will have a look at this, because I cannot think that this is just an isolated case. It would be remarkable if I should have come across the only case of the kind of a man placed in such a position as this. There must be other odd-job gardeners who have not been able to do any work since Christmas; there must be many other people doing all sorts of jobs who have not been able to do any work since Christmas—honest, hardworking people who have never made any claim upon the National Assistance Board in their lives.
Not only that, but this man says to me, "As soon as the weather gets better they can have their National Assistance grant back right away. So long as I can earn a few" bob "by doing odd-job gardening I do not want the National Assistance." With such a spirit of forthrightness and determination it does seem a pity that we should be so hidebound by regulations that such a man can be given assistance only from that date last week because that was the date he made application. I hope that my hon. Friend will have a look at this to see whether greater discretion can be allowed through the Assistance Board. We know that the Board and its officers do their job extremely well, and if they are fettered by these rules I hope that some method will be found of easing the rules so that they can deal adequately, faithfully and generously with cases such as that I have drawn to my hon. Friend's attention.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Hunter: The National Assistance (Determination of Need) Amendment Regulations which we are debating today determine the standard of living of the poorest people in the community. Of that there can be no question. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister, in the Second Reading debate on the National Insurance Bill, certainly promised to bring in new National Assistance Regulations. He hoped for a bigger

increase. The increase is 9s. a week for a married couple and 6s. a week for a single person. We all welcome these increases, but I still maintain that the increases are not sufficient when we consider the cost of living and the cost of the necessities of people on National Assistance.
The great bulk of people on National Assistance are retirement pensioners. We have unemployed and we have sick who, maybe, are on Assistance for a certain period but the retirement pensioners are on for the rest of their lives. I think they number over 1¼ million. The National Assistance supplementary allowance is most important to them.
I want to raise some points with the Minister, and I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, when she replies to the debate, will be able to give me some information about them. I know the National Assistance Board has discretionary powers during this winter to make allowances for heat, to make allowances for blankets, and for clothing. I know from my own personal experience in my own constituency, having drawn the attention of the Board to old people and sick people, that the Board is always most willing to help. My worry is, does it know all of the cases? Does it know all the cases of the old and sick who are cold and who need an extra allowance for extra electricity, coal or gas, or who want warm blankets or clothing?
There could be co-operation with the W.V.S., who, as we know, run so well the meals-on-wheels, and we could bring in also the help of other voluntary associations and also the help of doctors. There is a number of people who will not apply for National Assistance. We all have cases in our constituencies. There may be some needing coal or needing warm blankets. This has been the hardest winter in the memory of anyone in this House—within living memory. We have had nine weeks of this terrible freeze. One needs only to think of one's own electricity bill to know what it is costing. If one simply burns a 1,000-watt fire all day it could cost, I suppose, about 10s. a week. But they also need coal, or they need gas. I have known old-age pensioners who have gone to bed at half-past two in the afternoon—just to keep warm. We can understand the needs of the old people.
It may be said we do not always get these cold winters, but no one can tell how long this one will last, and I think the Minister should assure the House that the Board, especially for the rest of this winter period, has got powers to make allowances—extra allowances—for coal, gas, electricity, warm blankets or clothing. I think that this is most essential. I hope that when the Joint Parliamentary Secretary replies she will give the House that assurance.
Another point I want to make because I think it an important one is this. I know that the scale of the allowances, as set out in the White Paper, includes rent allowance. I have understood from previous debates that in 98 per cent. of cases the Board pays rent. There are parts of London area where rents are very high—far higher than they are in provincial cities, and especially now, after the removal of rent control. There may be an old couple in a place where the rent has gone up considerably and for whom there is no alternative accommodation. We all know the situation of people waiting on long council housing lists.
Have the Board powers to pay high rents of £3 or £4 a week? There is an average set out here in the White Paper Cmnd. 1943 for a married couple living alone paying rent and rates at 22s. 6d., but there may be old people in other houses whose rents have gone up considerably more and who cannot get alternative accommodation. I should like the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to give an assurance on the rent question.
I know that other hon. Members wish to speak in this short debate and so I do not want to speak for too long a time, and so I say finally that we welcome this 9s. a week for a married couple and we welcome this 6s. for a single person, but these amounts are still not sufficient, and I say again, as I have said before, in the National Insurance debate, that the date set for the payments is too late. They have got to wait till the end of May, right till the summer, before the increases are allowed. I plead again with the Minister, as I have pleaded before, that he should look again at the date, and I hope very much that he can bring the date forward from the 27th May to a

much earlier date. I hope very much that the Board will keep the needs of the old people and the sick people and the unemployed constantly under review.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Raymond Gower: It has been pointed out from both sides of the House, and particularly by hon. Members opposite, that the increases now planned, and which, we hope, will be passed very quickly, would be better if they were larger. Of course, this is always the case, but I think that the misunderstanding which always occurs in connection with these increases is a corollary of the way in which the Board acts as compared with the increases in insurance benefits. By that I mean that there would be far less misunderstanding if the Board's increases were synchronised with increases in National Insurance benefits.
Some of the speeches today have almost suggested that it would have been better if the increase of last September had been withheld until now so that the same increase could have been given for National Assistance as for National Insurance beneficiaries. If as happened last year the Board proposed to the Minister an interim increase, I suppose it would be a natural corollary that any subsequent increase following fairly soon after would be deemed to be inadequate. I feel that that is one aspect of this rather troublesome question. I agree with hon. Members who have said that this matter is not easily understood by anyone outside those who have studied it with particular attention.
I disagree with all who have suggested that the greatest hardship is always among those receiving National Assistance. My experience has been that the greatest hardship is to be found among those who are just above the National Assistance line. Let hon. Members think for a moment about the comparative position of the two groups. One person receives a National Insurance pension and may have modest savings. The other person, receiving National Assistance, receives a National Insurance pension supplemented by National Assistance, and in many cases receives a rent allowance or an allowance in respect of a mortgage on a private house, and, in addition, may receive discretionary benefits.
Today we have heard many praises in general of the National Assistance Board, but there have been a few criticisms in detail. I remember a speech many years ago when I praised the Board and Mr. George Buchanan, then its Chairman, and those who assisted him. We cannot say too much in praise of the Board. It was set on the right tracks by Mr. Buchanan, and another former colleague of ours, now Lord Ilford, with his present associates, has continued to steer the Board along that very desirable line. The Board has had a wonderful record of administration, but I do not dispute that in individual cases among its officers there may be faults. After all, they are human beings.
As to the discretionary benefits which have been mentioned, I should have thought—and I ask my right hon. Friend to consider this—that the Board should have had a wide enough discretion this winter to assume in all cases that in such severe weather people would be spending more on fuel and light. It did not need to be a matter of assumption; it is a matter of common knowledge that practically everybody has had to spend more on heating and lighting their homes. I should have thought that there would have been a very strong case in the last six weeks for the supplement, to be increased for this reason alone.
I hope that if we ever have such a winter again, this will follow, automatically if necessary. It should not be a case of individual application. Every person living at the National Assistance level would feel the effects of such an extraordinarily severe winter, and, presumably, every such person—there may be a very few exceptions, such as those living with relatives or in institutions—would have to spend more on heating and lighting their homes. Consequently, I hope that there will be no question in future of this having to be left to individual application.
With regard to the future set-up of the Welfare State which has been advocated, I feel that hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House have been overstating the case. They seem to imply that if we had an investigation or reappraisal we could easily, with no greater annual expenditure, arrange for far greater benefits for the elderly. I do not think that is the case. I believe that we have so many

contractual commitments under the National Insurance Fund that it would be fairly difficult to achieve that result. Today, millions of people are paying their contributions and they believe that on retirement they will be entitled to a fixed minimum benefit. In view of the vast numbers involved, it will not be easy, following some further investigation, to arrange for a miraculous improvement in benefits.
I hope that the natural passing of time will achieve a great deal of that result. We are today dealing with a generation whose ability to accumulate savings was lessened by the conditions of the interwar years. But soon in most parts of the country we shall be moving into an era when we shall have a generation which since the beginning of the last war has had a much more favourable basis on which to build. Also, we shall in future be dealing, I hope, not merely with the improvement of the superannuation benefits but with a vast extension of private factory insurance schemes and private saving of all kinds. I believe that we shall then be able to make more generous provision for fewer people. Meanwhile, we must pay particular attention to this generation which, through no fault of its own, suffered so much.
That is why I certainly welcome the increases. I agree that we should always like them to be bigger, but, as I said, I believe that to some extent any misunderstanding about this is a corollary of the fact that the Board brings in increases more regularly and at shorter intervals than the increases which we introduce under the National Insurance Fund. I am glad that at any rate this time the increases for pensioners are not to come on different dates, because that would increase the misunderstanding.
I recall an earlier occasion some years ago when everyone enjoyed an increase in pension on a certain date, and then a month or so later some suffered a reduction. At all events, on the date in May everyone will have an increase—some a larger increase than others, but, at any rate, all who are entitled will receive an increase. Therefore, I am sure that the House will be eager to approve these regulations——

Miss Herbison: The hon. Member is making great play of the fact that both increases will be paid at the same time,


and says that he is glad. My hon. Friends and I would have been delighted if they were to be paid next week. Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the National Assistance scales could have been increased much more quickly without administrative difficulties? After all that he has said about old people, would he not have preferred that where help could have been given, it should have been given at the quickest moment?

Mr. Gower: I was merely saying that misunderstanding would have been greater if reductions had followed increases. I was recalling an occasion when that happened. I then received an enormous volume of correspondence from people who regarded it as particularly grievous that after having an increase they had to suffer a reduction. I should have liked both increases to be paid earlier, but I want them to be synchronised at whatever time they come.
I am sure that the House will be eager to pass these regulations so that the Board shall be authorised to make these increases as soon as possible.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: The hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) made one point with which I agree. It was the only one, for later he seemed to be attempting to make a case for the Government's decision as to timing. Despite his verbal support for the timing, however, I do not believe that in his heart he can bring himself to approve it. It was because of this, I think, that he paid so much attention to the advantages of synchronisation.
The point he made, with which I agree, concerns those who are just above the line which allows qualification for supplementary allowances and payments. I agree that, since there has not been an adequate pension for such a long period, an ever larger number of people have had to apply to the National Assistance Board. A considerable range of people are just above the level which would allow them to receive supplementary payments, although they are nevertheless suffering dire poverty.
In our constituencies, hon. Members on both sides meet such cases practically every week. I drew the attention of the Minister's predecessor to the same position that the hon. Member for Barry has

mentioned, and asked him to instruct the Board's officers to be particularly liberal in the application of the rules in such cases. The right hon. Gentleman told me that he could not possibly agree to anything so unconstitutional, that the Board was working in accordance with certain regulations and he could not consider giving it instructions as to how to administer those regulations, and suggested that he would be subverting the constitution if he did. It sounds good, but it does not meet the case.
I believe that the hon. Member for Barry is on to an important point which has to do not so much with this debate but with the general pensions policy of the Government. He has touched upon one of that policy's main defects—that of always lagging behind and not making the pension itself more adequate. It is this policy which leaves so many people in poverty.

Mr. Gower: I thought that the hon. Gentleman nodded agreement with another point I made—that in view of the severity of the winter there might be a prima facie case for increasing discretionary allowances.

Mr. Mendelson: No hon. Member could disagree with that. It is not a controversial point, and that is why I did not deal with it. There certainly will be general agreement on that.
The main weakness of the hon. Gentleman's speech, and the one in which I am convinced, he did not have his heart, was when he talked about the importance of understanding. He said that there would be a great advantage because the increased payments would all start on the same day and that this would avoid a great deal of misunderstanding. There may be more understanding, but there will not be less poverty meanwhile. It is far more important that the Minister should give instructions to the Board to bring in the increase more speedily in order to avoid poverty over a matter of weeks rather than to stick to the principle of synchronisation. In this respect, synchronisation does not matter.
These people are in a very difficult position. It is of the greatest importance that the Minister should hear from as many hon. Members as possible in debates such as this so that he may know how people feel about this matter.


I want to quote from a letter I received today from the Stocksbridge Branch of the National Federation of Old Age Pensions Associations. Stocksbridge is near Sheffield, in the steel part of my constituency. The latter is signed on behalf of the branch by the secretary, who has worked for it for many years and is greatly respected by everybody in the community. She writes:
Whilst we welcome the pension increase in May we feel that it should have been given immediately. Our old people have had a most trying winter—and do need to build up their reserves if they are to enjoy good health.
Surely the poorest of the poor should have the full overall increase of 10s. and 16s. 6d. and not of 6s. and 9s. Concerning the hardships of this long winter the Government could have made the increases retrospective.
There are four essential points in that letter, and I want to deal with them one by one. First, there is the reference to timing. The Minister would be ill-advised to underestimate the deep feeling in the country on this. It does not matter to the old people in Stocksbridge and to the rest of the community whether there is tidiness about the starting date. The Minister must meet the argument that it should be possible—we are sure that it is—to start these payments earlier than in May.
What has prevented a decision to pay them earlier? Is the Chancellor responsible? Is the Chancellor frightened of introducing further Supplementary Estimates this financial year? If that is the case, one can assure him that not a single person in the country would be alarmed or upset by a further Supplementary Estimate for this purpose. The Government would be absolutely safe in that respect.
If it is true that tidiness—the desire to have these increases under next year's budget—has played a part, even only a minor part, in the decision, it should be rescinded now. It is completely wrong morally and politically and there should be no difficulty in even now announcing that these increases will start much earlier than the others.
The second point in the letter deals with the scales themselves. The hon. Member for Barry and other hon. Members have referred—the Minister himself made a lot of it—to the fact that there has been a previous increase. But

it is impossible to argue merely by adding up two figures. That is not a defensible case. What matters is not arithmetic but the poverty these people are suffering.
There is no validity in claiming that these increases have to do with the cost of living for old people. There is no relation between the normal cost-of-living index and the cost of living for old people. All of us who have made an, independent inquiry into this know that the cost-of-living index is wildly misleading in relation to the needs of old-age pensioners.
Between 1948 and 1950, when I was working for one of the northern universities, together with 12 students, I conducted a very modest inquiry into the lives and expenditure of 148 old-age pensioners in one part of south Yorkshire. Very soon after we had started our inquiry we found that one thing which was almost wholly irrelevant to the outgoings of old-age pensioners was the current cost of living. Since then, the cost-of-living index has been radically changed, and it is now composed by reference to a general increase in the standard of living of the employed population. In many ways, although not in all, the change has been very sensible and the index has been brought up to date, but the partial inquiries which have been made officially from time to time have shown that there are some things which are far more important as part of the general expenditure in an old-age pensioner's home than they are in the average home. While this is always true, it has been heavily underlined in this bitterly cold winter. Therefore, reference to increases in the cost of living are not very important.
The hon. Member for Barry spoke of understanding. It does not greatly matter whether old-age pensioners understand every administrative detail about how some of this things are introduced. What matters much more is whether they can feel that these things are being done justly, in a way which does justice to many people who are in dire need. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary not to give us one of those steely hard, academic cases, in which most of the figures and the statistics fit together, but from which there is a complete absence of any human approach which


would be much better understood among the people about whom I am talking. I sincerely warn her that it will be much better for her office and the work of her Department if she really tries to meet our argument and does not confine herself to a statistically able defence of her right hon. Friend's actions.
The third point in the letter deals with retrospection for these payments. It is well known that, because the National Assistance Board must deal only with current need, past need cannot be given as a reason to justify regular payments and, therefore, there cannot be retrospective payments. However, we are now dealing with a position which is unprecedented in many ways. The letter speaks of building up reserves, but that is putting it rather optimistically. What has happened in the bitter winter of recent weeks is that any pensioner with even the smallest savings has used up everything he could lay his hands on in order to buy the bare necessities to keep him going. This is a perfectly clear case for saying that, although the regulations are reasonably justifiable in all normal situations, the right hon. Gentleman ought to consider retrospection in this instance.
I remember a famous occasion when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced regulations dealing with dividend stripping and other shady financial dealings of the kind which occur in the City from time to time. He made the penalties retrospective. I hasten to add that, having met some of his colleagues in a Committee Room upstairs and after a few hostile articles in the Financial Times, he returned to the House to withdraw those courageous regulations. But the former Chancellor need not be a guide to the right hon. Gentleman in all respects, and if it was possible for the Chancellor to introduce retrospective penalties, the Minister has an honourable precedent when he is dealing, through the National Assistance Board, with fellow citizens who are in difficulties.
If he applies his mind to the problems of retrospection and seriously considers whether, after this terrible winter, additional payment should be made as an exceptional measure, whatever the lawyers may say, he will find that he will have the overwhelming majority of

people on his side if he comes to a positive conclusion.
The fourth and last point in the letter concerns the general atmosphere in which the increases are being introduced. I am not worried about whether these provisions are part of a general expansionist policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not believe that it goes far enough, but the expansionist policy has my support so far as it goes. If it is part of that general policy, the right hon. Gentleman ought to fight the battle and say to the Chancellor, "You may have a number of reasons why you want to stage your expansionist efforts and time them in a certain way, but the need to bring these increases to these poor people is so urgent and fundamental and humanitarian that any staging or timing which you might have in mind ought to go by the board; and I demand that these increases be brought forward as far as possible".
If he did that, he would have the widest possible support. If the Parliamentary Secretary replies to our case only on administrative grounds, ignoring what we have said about urgency, we shall know that the overriding considerations which we are putting forward are not those upon which Her Majesty's Government are basing their actions.

6.27 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison: This has been a most interesting debate. Much of the criticism from this side of the House has been about the difference between the amounts of the increases in National Insurance benefits and the National Assistance allowances. Hon. Members opposite have made little or no criticism of that, but they have of the wage-stop, with which I shall deal later.
The difference will be 4s. for a single person and 7s. 6d. for a married couple, very important sums for someone living on the bare minimum. I hope that as a result of the debate the Minister will be as generous as he was in our discussions on the old compensation cases, will appreciate that a strong case has been made, and will withdraw these Regulations and bring forward new ones. I can guarantee that there would be no debate on the new Regulations and he would need only to nod his head for them to be passed through the House.
I want to quote an article which appeared in a Scottish newspaper. As has often been done, it compares the circumstances of Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, who is to receive an increase of 10s., with those of a hard-hit, former private of 70. It says:
That's called 'fair shares', The poorer you get—and you have to be pretty poor to draw National Assistance—the more they rub your face in the mud.
When they increased old age pensions foe married couples by 16s. 6d. a week, it was clearly because the Government thought the standard of living of the old people should go up by that amount.
How on earth can it be argued that they don't need as much if they draw National Assistance?
I think that the case that we have made has been completely in line with that article, but what was the Minister's reaction to what he thought would come from this debate?
He thought that the old, the chronic sick, and the long-term unemployed, were inclined to forget that they had received an increase in September. I thought that that was rather patronising, particularly in view of the deputation from the Scottish Old-Age Pensioners' Association which I led to see him last week. I am sure that the Minister could not possibly have listened to what was said by those old people who are living amongst old people and know just how much they are suffering. They told the Minister that during this winter old people were faced with two alternatives. They had to choose between starving to death and freezing, to death, and the Minister must know that that has been the choice open to a number of old people this winter.
The hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) said that if we were to look at the increases from 1961 to those proposed today in respect of National Insurance and National Assistance benefits, we would find that they were the same—an increase of 10s. for a single person. What comfort that will bring to old people who, on 27th May, will get 6s. and not the 10s. that they hoped to receive!
The Minister's speech and that of the hon. Member for Hertford, who always gives all the statistics he can possibly lay his hands on, show how divorced they are from the kind of life which so many of our old and sick people are living.

Many of these people are on the poverty line.
Then we heard—he is not in the Chamber at the moment—the Government's chief apologist on every occasion, the hen. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower). He told us he was pleased that these increases were to be synchronised. It seemed that he was pleased because his post-bag would be much lighter than it otherwise would be. I am more concerned about how old people live than about any form of synchronisation of increases, because it is a fact, as the Minister knows, that if he cared to do so the increase for those on National Insurance could be paid much sooner than 27th May, and even at this late stage I beg him to bring in an earlier date for this increase in National Assistance.
The hon. Member for Barry said that the people who were worst off were those living just above the National Assistance scale level. It seems that he has not realised that one person out of fifty at present on National Assistance will, with the 10s. increase, be just above the National Assistance Board scale. The hon. Gentleman does not seem to be worried about these people. The Minister hoped that during this debate we would not complain about some people being taken off National Assistance. He referred to a figure of one in fifty. We are complaining not that they are being taken off National Assistance, but that the National Assistance Board scales will not be sufficiently high.
The Government are in a dilemma, and have been for a number of years. Even after twelve years of power they have not found a solution to the problem. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), whose speech I enjoyed very much, said that the assumptions of 1948 just had not worked out. Perhaps there is some truth in that. He said that they had been based on Beveridge. The fact is that in our social insurance legislation we greatly improved on what Beveridge proposed, though there is no doubt that flaws have appeared. We were turned out of office in 1951 before we could really discover whether the Acts which we brought in would work as we intended, and since then it has been the responsibility of successive Tory Governments to try to find some other scheme which would get them out of their dilemma, because in these


days it is not possible, by means of flat-rate increases, to give to the poorest in our country the kind of income that we want them to receive.
The Government's graduated pension scheme, which we have said on many occasions is a swindle, will mean that in twenty years people will retire on a pension below the National Assistance Board scales. This is not much of a scheme, and perhaps I might inform the hon. Member for Hertford, who is very interested in our scheme, that we have one, and that it will be published in a few weeks. When it is, I am certain that the majority of people will be glad to find that there has been some real new thinking on this question of pensions. They will be glad to find that although a Tory Government, after twelve years in office, with all the assistance of their civil servants, could not work out a scheme, we have been able to work out one which will ensure for everyone the kind of life, the comfort, and dignity, which we want every old person in this country to have on retirement.
I turn now to the wage-stop. I agreed with everything said by the hon. Member for Uxbridge. The general secretary of the Family Service Units conducted a survey in 1959. It showed that many of the families attended by the units received no increase in National Assistance following the increase in scales at that time. The Association of Social Workers, and workers in the Family Welfare Association, are very concerned about the effects of the operation of the wage-stop. There are many people today who, because of its operation, are living below what even a Tory Government believe to be subsistence levels. A large number of the unemployed, and a large number of sick people on National Assistance, with more than three children will receive no increase in National Assistance. The Minister said that this wage-stop affected one in eight of the unemployed who were in receipt of National Assistance, but he knows that these numbers are not distributed evenly over the British Isles.
It all depends on the area in which one lives. In many parts of Scotland wage rates are lower than in other parts of Britain. That means that the proportion of those affected by the wage-stop in Scotland is much greater than one in

eight who are affected. Because wages are too low the Government say, "We shall have to ensure that even when people have to go on National Assistance they will receive a sum which is much below subsistence level."
I want to give one example of what I mean. One of my constituents had worked as a miner for many years. Because of his health he was no longer able to do so. He had been earning £20 a week. He was examined by the National Coal Board doctor and then by the Ministry's own doctor, and both doctors decided that he could not continue to work in the mines. He was registered at the unemployment exchange as an unskilled worker. He draws National Assistance, but the wage to which that assistance is related is not the £20 that he was drawing as a miner but the notional wage that he would receive as an unskilled worker, doing work that he has never done in his life. In his home the friction has been so great that his wife has left her husband and their small family. That is just one of the tragedies caused by the operation of this wage stop.
I want the Minister seriously to consider this and to do what his hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge suggested. I agree that there are some people who neither work nor want. They exist among the ordinary people as well as among the very well off. But why, because there are a small proportion of these people, should thousands and thousands of decent families be penalised by the wage-stop? If I cannot convince the Minister, I hope that the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Uxbridge will go some way towards doing so.
I now turn to the question of prescription charges and their effect upon old people. Three or four weeks ago a constituent of mine came to see me. She was one of those about whom we speak a great deal—a person who is too independent and proud to apply for National Assistance. I always try to persuade such people to apply. I always find that National Assistance Board officers go out of their way to help these people. My constituent had thought about it, but her family—a working-class family—had been horrified at the idea of their mother having to go to the National Assistance Board.
I talked quietly with her, and finally she agreed that I should write to the National Assistance Board. I did so and received in return a letter from the manager saying that she could have a shilling a week supplementary payment. The real problem of this woman arose from the prescription charges. As I explained to the National Assistance Board manager, she is in very bad health and needs many prescriptions at 2s. a time. She is now receiving National Assistance of 1s. a week, which automatically entitles her to a refund of prescription charges. But on 27th May her retirement pension will be increased by 10s., and National Assistance will rise by 6s., and my constituent will be back where she was four weeks ago, again living on the subsistence level and with no automatic right to a refund of prescription charges. This seems to be a cat-and-mouse way of dealing with decent and respectable old people.
I make this plea to the Minister: the National Assistance Board, which really wants to help these people, knows the old people who are already in receipt of National Assistance, and if the Minister will not accept our plea and raise the 6s. to 10s.—with an extra 7s. 6d. for couples—there can surely be no difficulty in ensuring that those old people who are now in receipt of National Assistance will continue to have their prescription charges refunded automatically. That is a small matter, and it does not give all that we want for our old people, but at least it would be a help.
There is no use in the Parliamentary Secretary's comparing present conditions with those in 1946, 1948 and 1958. At 1946 prices, the new increases mean that a single old person will receive 37s. a week. There is now a new climate of opinion in Britain. People are now saying that it is not good enough merely to bring forward statistics showing that the old people today are better off than they were in 1948 and 1951. We want them all to have a much better standard of Living.

6.46 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This debate has been outstanding for two main reasons—first, for the number of

practical suggestions that have come from hon. Members, and, secondly, for the universal tribute that has been paid to the National Assistance Board for the way in which it discharges its duties. In the short time available to me I want to go through as many as possible of the points which hon. Members have raised, because my right hon. Friend dealt fairly fully with some of the main issues in his opening speech.
I will first deal with the last point raised by the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) about the prescription charges. Most of those people who were entitled to a refund of prescription charges before the pensions and National Assistance increases will still be eligible for those refunds. In the last year for which figures are available, prescription charge refunds were given to people not receiving weekly National Assistance supplements in 200,000 separate instances, so people not entitled to National Assistance supplements week by week were receiving prescription charge refunds.
Many hon. Members have referred to the discretionary powers of the Board and the need for more information, including my noble Friend the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel), my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) and the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). There is no mystery about the circumstances in which discretionary powers are exercised; they are set out in the Board's annual reports. As many hon. Members know, a laundry allowance is payable in cases where a person is suffering from a disease such as arthritis. There are also window cleaning allowances, fuel allowances and nutritional allowances.
In this debate, as in previous ones, many requests have been made for extra information about these allowances. There have also been requests for extra information about cases in which rent is not allowed for in full. The hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter), who spoke earnestly, sincerely and practically, as usual, asked about this, and I can tell him that in most cases the rent is allowed in full. Indeed, in the more expensive parts of London up to five guineas is allowed in some cases. That is not always the case, because an officer of the Board


may think that suitable accommodation is available at a lower cost. Nevertheless, the fact that the rent is fairly high does not preclude its being allowed in full.
The Board's officers try to visit at least once every six months people who are regularly in receipt of weekly supplements. If people have helpful relatives who always let the Board's officers know of any change in circumstances the visits are not as frequent, but where there are no such relatives the visits are more frequent. In the recent bad weather, with the extra number of applications made, the Board's officers have not been able to visit as regularly as they would like. The Board relies particularly on voluntary helpers and Members of Parliament to keep them informed of any special needs.
I should like to tell the House that the Board, in response to requests for more information, and particularly after the debate that we had on 13th July, 1962, when this was raised, has arranged to collect further information about the exercise of discretionary powers so that fuller information can be given in the Board's next annual report, and I am sure that this will be most welcome both to Members of this House and to those who study these things in the London School of Economics and other places.
It has also arranged to give more details about the cases in which rent is not allowed in full. Concerning fuel, extra allowances are given for fuel usually from the beginning of November to the end of April. They are not, of course, confined to extra weekly allowances. Special lump sum payments can be made where there are high electricity bills or high costs which would result in hardship to the individual person who is receiving assistance. There are the two kinds, extra weekly allowances and the special lump sum grant.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford for pointing out the advantages of a discretionary system. Frequently when dealing with National Insurance cases my right hon. Friend and I have had to write to hon. Members saying virtually words to this effect, "This goes by rule of thumb; neither my right hon. Friend nor I have any powers to intervene or interfere with this particular arrangement". With National Assistance it is different. There is that very flexibility which hon. Members

would sometimes like to have in National Insurance, and we should be slow to discard the advantages of this discretionary system, because in more cases than not it results in the officers giving the recipients of National Assistance the extra benefit of the doubt and helping them whenever they possibly can. This is of great advantage to many of the old folk who come to us for help.
The noble Lord mentioned one particular case of older folk who go into residential homes, and he asked if the Board could not possibly pay rent for a longer period. There is no rigid period fixed for this particular circumstance. When old folk decide to go into residential homes it is usually with the idea of staying there, and therefore the rent of the establishment which they left or the home which they left is paid for the period needed to clear things up or, alternatively, if there is some doubt whether they will stay in the home, it is paid until a clear decision has been made. This cannot go on indefinitely, but there is a good deal of latitude in the period in case a person should decide not to stay. Clearly there must be a line beyond which the Board cannot pay; but there is no rigid period and the Board will look at each case on its merits.
My hon. Friend also asked whether it was not possible to link the scale rates to average earnings. We should be most reluctant in either National Insurance or National Assistance rates to link them to any one particular economic indicator, because there would always be circumstances when that would act to the detriment of the recipient of National Insurance or National Assistance. I have been asked not to give too many statistics. I do not usually give them when winding up; it is when opening that I give them. I would, however, like to mention one particular statistic, namely, that had we followed advice and kept abreast of average earnings the scale of rates would not be going up today as we are proposing to put them up. For example, for a single householder the rates which we are proposing are 165 per cent, over the 1948 rates, whereas the average earnings are at the moment 137 per cent. over what they were in 1948. I must in all honesty point out to the House that average earnings are published only twice a year on inquiries made by the Ministry of Labour and these figures relate, therefore, to


October, 1962, so we cannot even compare like with like when it comes to the time of a particular economic indicator. On the whole, people do better from the broad things which we take into account when we are fixing increases.
Concerning the operation of the wage stop—and if I am not taken to task for dealing with statistics I think I should take my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge to task for using algebra in his speech—in comparing what a person gets when in work with his requisite National Assistance rates, the equation is that Assistance plus family allowances should not exceed earnings plus family allowances, so the two are, in fact, self-cancelling.
As the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) pointed out, and I am very grateful to him as this is a particularly difficult problem, I do not think that it would be wise or a proper use of public funds for a person to have a higher standard of living when out of a job than he can possibly get by going back to his regular job. If that were the case, he would have a positive disincentive to taking a job and would almost have a positive duty to his family not to take a job. That would not be at all right.
There are 25,000 allowances at the moment which are wage-stopped out of a total of 202,000 unemployed recipients of assistance. I should like to point out to the House that the officers of the Board can, in the exercise of their discretion, watch for any signs of hardship so that they can make special allowances to mitigate that hardship as, for example, where a child is sick or new clothing is needed. They watch very carefully for any particular kinds of hardship. The yardstick used for fixing the wage stop is what the man in an unskilled occupation, or whatever his occupation is, would earn today if he went into his job today and not, as my hon. Friend pointed out, what he earned when he left that same job some time ago.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) spoke most warmly of a most admirable person aged seventy-six, and what he told us about him was an inspiration to us all. It is quite true that the Board cannot

pay weekly allowances for current needs in respect of needs that have already past, so it cannot back-date weekly allowances, but there are cases for special lump-sum payments where perhaps outstanding debts have accumulated or particularly large electricity bills, or something like that, come in.
It is true, of course, that these Regulations together with the National Insurance increases, will bring an increase in total income to many people. The 6s. increase to a single householder is a larger increase than previously given at any one time; and the 9s. increase for a married couple is also as large as previously given at any one time; and eight months is the shortest interval between increases. There have been differences of opinion about the amount that has been given, but I am sure that we all join in welcoming the increases that are to go to people in need. We have discussed the work of the Board in relation to the cash benefits to be dispersed. The Board not only carries out its task with wisdom, sympathy and understanding, but through its officers it has become the friend and helper of many of our people in need. In this spirit I commend the Regulations to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the National Assistance (Determination of Need) Amendment Regulations, 1963, a draft of which was laid before this House on 6th February, be approved.

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (CANDIDATES)

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod): I beg to move,
That it is expedient that an advisory Committee should be appointed by the Home Secretary to examine every application for release from the armed forces for the purpose of contesting a parliamentary election, and to report to the appropriate Service Minister, in each case, whether or not they are satisfied that it is a bona fide application.
I do not intend to try to obtain this Motion before seven o'clock and we shall return to it at ten o'clock. I have not time to make a lengthy oration on this subject. In fact, there are only two or three points which I wish to make, but I think that they are of importance.
I am sure that the House is grateful to the Select Committee——

STEEL INDUSTRY

7.0 p.m.

Mr. John Morris: I beg to move,
That this House, taking note of the serious under-employment of capacity in the steel industry over a long period, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to take steps as a matter of urgency to stimulate the demand for steel; and while approving the action of Richard Thomas and Baldwin's in their recent acquisition of a private company, notes with concern the unsatisfactory means by which this was achieved, and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to seek from Parliament the powers required to reorganise the structure and finances of the steel industry to serve the national interest.
I do not intend to make a long speech, because I am quite sure that my popularity would be in inverse proportion to its length, having regard to the number of my hon. Friends who wish to take part in this debate.
I shall not go into the economic circumstances of the steel industry but confine myself to an analysis of it as we find it today. On numerous occasions the House has heard from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) at great length about the need to stimulate the growth of our economy and to put it once again on its feet. I do not propose to enter into the economic arguments, but, as I say, to confine myself to the state of the steel industry as it is today.
In July of last year we debated the 1961 Report of the Iron and Steel Board. The Board therein stated that the immediate outlook for the steel industry was none too bright. The Minister for Power stated frankly to the House that it would be some time before there was a substantial improvement. How right was the right hon. Gentleman proved to be in the event. We are still awaiting a substantial improvement. But even the right hon. Gentleman expected an upturn in the economy. He told us on that occasion that his right hon. Friends the Minister of Labour and the President of the Board of Trade were most anxious to take positive steps to find new employment for workers from old plants who had lost their jobs, and reference was made to new industries in areas where they were needed.
How hollow all this rings today when we examine what the Government have achieved in the six months since that last debate. Instead of positive achievements we have had government by gimmick. The latest gimmick of the Government is to send Lord Hailsham, as a sort of cloth-capped rich man's Keir Hardie, to the North-East in an attempt to solve the problem there.
In our last debate on the steel industry the Parliamentary Secretary castigated hon. Members on this side of the House and, presumably, by inference he castigated me, in saying:
… I do not think that hon. Members opposite do themselves or their country a service in painting too black a picture."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1962; Vol. 663, c. 1977.]
There was a patriotic vein in what the hon. Gentleman was then saying. But having regard to the situation of the steel industry six months after he said that, it would be far more becoming for the Parliamentary Secretary to don sackcloth and ashes himself rather than that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House should do so. The picture has not brightened since July. It remains the same, as I shall endeavour to show.
What does the balance sheet of the steel industry reveal today? What is the real situation regarding user capacity? At the beginning of 1961 the industry was operating in excess of 90 per cent. capacity. At the end of 1961 the figure was down to 75 per cent. It fell steadily throughout 1962, the average for that year was 74 per cent. The latest figures for January of this year show that the industry is operating a capacity of 69 per cent., according to the Report of the Board. In some areas the figure is far higher than that.
In my own constituency the situation is much better, but in some areas it is much worse. The figure for Scotland compared with 1961 when it was 73·9 per cent. is down to 60·3 per cent. There is another substantial fall on the North-East coast from 80·7 per cent. to 59 per cent. There are similar figures for the North-West Coast, for Yorkshire and for Sheffield. The latest figure regarding pig-iron shows an alarming fall particularly in Scotland and for steel ingots on the North-East Coast. There seems little hope for the unemployed in those parts of the country.
When examining the component parts of the industry one finds in respect of blast furnaces that a quarter fewer are operating now than at the beginning of 1961. Indeed, the latest figures for pig-iron production show that the figures for January, with the exception of one month, are the lowest for any month since this Government took office in October, 1959. That represents the achievement of this Government. Last year 1 million tons of pig-iron fewer than the previous year were produced and again in 1961 as compared with 1960 the figure was down by 1 million tons.
When one examines where the steel is going and where it is necessary for the Government to stimulate demand, one finds that home consumption has fallen by 10 per cent. compared with the figure for the previous year. The figures for home consumption may be broken down in relation to railways, shipping, mechanical and constructional engineering. One finds that there has been a slight rise only in respect of the hollowware and the motor industries.
That is a dismal, terrible picture, and I am sure that the hon. Members who, last July, put the real facts before the House, which they have gained from their own knowledge, were not doing a disservice, as was suggested then by the Parliamentary Secretary. They were doing a great service. The picture was black then it is blacker today.
In the July debate the Minister said that there was one ray of sunshine. He was dealing with the figures for exports in 1961. But even that silver lining appears to be tattered when one takes a close look. He said that in an otherwise sombre picture there was one bright spot. But the Minister painted only half of the picture. The figures for exports were falling towards the end of 1961 and the figures available then for the first five months of 1962 showed that they were down compared with the first five months of 1961. Now that we have the full figures for 1962 we find that they show that exports were down in that year compared with 1961 and we are back to 1960 level.
As I have said, the economic measures have already been dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and by my hon. Friend the Member

for Cardiff, South-East. But there is one thing of vital importance—it is the real tragedy—to which I must refer. It is the unused capacity of the steel industry. In our last debate the late Mr. Jack Jones, who then represented Rotherham, said that every pennyworth of capacity had to be paid for. That is the handicap which this industry has to bear now, and will have to shoulder for many years. It has invested in that capacity, and it is incumbent upon the Government to stimulate the economy to ensure that this capacity is being used.
Like other hon. Members, I believe that the steel industry should be competitive, and that the disadvantages from which it suffers should be examined. I refer particularly to the need for adequate ports for the industry. We are still awaiting the comments of the Ministry of Transport on the Rochdale Report. At Port Talbot, in my own constituency, we are still importing iron ore in penny packets. That is a situation which handicaps the whole industry in its efforts to compete with its continental rivals.
I wish to refer to the situation resulting from the fixing of maximum prices by the Board which are treated as minima by the Iron and Steel Federation and its constituent members. I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary is happy with this state of affairs? Is not this a restrictive practice? I wonder how long it will go on. I wonder what a slight increase in user capacity of our modern sheet steel mills would make to the profits of these companies. I wonder whether this is an ideal solution, that maximum prices fixed by the Board should be treated by the Federation as minimum prices.
When the Board fixes its prices it takes into consideration the cost of iron ore, and that is a very important item which is handled by the Federation. I wonder whether the Federation is efficient. May we have a reassurance that this extra cost is not being handed on to consumers and exporters? Has the Minister of Power power to investigate and ensure that the cost of iron ore is not being inflated?
Over the years there has been considerable investment in iron ore carriers. How many of those have been laid up and how many are not being used? How many are being sub-chartered at great


loss? What is the end result on the cost of the importation of iron ore? These are long-term contracts. Are they good contracts? Could we have a fair examination of these matters which affect the cost of iron ore and which are passed on in the prices eventually fixed by the Board, and do they render the industry less competitive compared with continental producers?
It is vital that our own house should be put in order at all times, particularly in an industry where there is no illusion that it is a free enterprise industry.

Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot: How does the hon. Member match this with the idea that the Board should go in for bulk purchase, as the Leader of the Opposition said? The hon. Member now says the opposite.

Mr. Morris: If the hon. Member was listening—and I gave him credit for listening—he would have realised that I was not condemning the practice, but I wanted it to be analysed to show whether the purchases were good. That is a very different matter.
Turning to the structural reorganisation mentioned in the latter part of my Motion, I believe the only real solution by which we can have a proper, sound, economic steel industry is that of public ownership. That is a matter of common sense.

Sir Gerald Nabarro: rose—

Mr. Morris: I am only just beginning a controversy. I am sure that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro) will be able to make a very good speech later.
I fought the last General Election on this issue. I said that at the earliest opportunity the steel industry should revert to the nation's hands. The recent Whitehead issue has spotlighted the vital need for the reversion of the whole industry to public hands. Among other things, it spotlighted the issue and put paid to the suggestion made in the Spectator inquiry a few years ago that half the industry should be in public hands and half of it in private hands.
The reversion of Whitehead is welcome to the public. Whitehead, being a vital limb of R.T.B., should never have been denationalised. There is no reason why

Whitehead, which has played such a vital part in Richard Thomas and Baldwins, should ever have been separated and denationalised. The folly of that act of denationalisation has now been shown by the amount of money which the Government have to spend in bringing it back into public ownership.
There are close ties between these two sections of the industry. About 90 per cent. of the billets which go to Whitehead come from R.T.B. They operate on each other's doorsteps and if they had lost the contract 300 workers would have been put out at Gowerton and 3,850 would have been affected at Redbourne, while the valuation of Richard Thomas and Baldwins would also have been affected. Whitehead received very little sympathy from me on this issue. The firm brought the trouble on to its own head when it entered into the purchase of billets more cheaply than could be obtained in this country.
Some commentators say that that is good business. Good business for whom? Good business for the shareholders of Whitehead who, unfortunately, had been treated rather contemptuously by the board of directors when the dividend was cut last December. Once there was a suggestion of a take-over bid by Stewarts and Lloyds or R.T.B., there was more talk by the Whitehead directors of restoration of dividend and possibly the handing out of cash assets.
When the take-over bid was mooted, a circular was issued, full of soft phrases, with a view to reassuring the shareholders that their dividends would be protected, but the basis of this was cheap imported steel. The Guardian of 30th January asked whether, if Whitehead became a subsidiary of Richard Thomas and Baldwins, or of Stewarts and Lloyds—the fight was still on then—the customers would lose the benefit of cheap Canadian steel. What a naive question to ask. The prices are the prices fixed by the Iron and Steel Board. There was no suggestion at any time of passing on to British industry the advantage of buying those billets at a lesser price.
I am advised that the result so far as exports are concerned in insignificant. The only good business in buying Canadian billets was good business for Whitehead shareholders. The decision


was taken, I understand, that in the national interest the firm should be taken over by Richard Thomas and Baldwins. I should like to know what Stewarts and Lloyds were doing at that time. That firm could not have forgotten the £400,000 or £1 million it spent before the last election on the anti-nationalisation campaign. Was it expected that the bread "cast upon the waters" would be returned and was it disappointed? Were Shylocks and Lloyds asking for their pound of flesh, and were they disappointed in the result?
The Government should stand firm on this issue. I admire the integrity of the Chief Secretary on this issue and I am glad of the decision, but I am sure that it must be an embarrassment to Stewarts and Lloyds, in view of the large amount of money that firm put up a few years ago. Why should Richard Thomas and Baldwins be saddled with paying £10⅔ million for an industry whose market value according to the shares was not worth more than £3¾ million? The industry was sold back for £3·4 million and £3·6 million of additional profits were ploughed back. On that basis it could be said to be worth £7 million. Whether it is £3¾ million or £7 million, public money was thrown down the drain and it was not necessary for the country to do that.
The Chancellor's argument is that if Richard Thomas and Baldwins had lost Whitehead there would have been a much bigger loss for the taxpayer. At Redbourne, £23 million was invested. How far could R.T.B. have gone if better offers had been made? The weakness and the short-sightedness of the Government is that in the 1953 Iron and Steel Act they retained no power to deal with a take-over bid of this nature. It was never contemplated that part of the industry would remain nationalised for many years and that the time would come when to protect itself it would need the power to acquire another steel firm.
Had the Government come to the House and introduced a short Bill to take Whitehead into public ownership, the Opposition would have given every facility for the speedy passage of such a Measure. [Laughter.] Hon. Members

opposite may laugh, but had that been done a number of millions of pounds, whether £3 million or £6 million, would have been saved. Usually, there are complaints from hon. Members opposite when public money is wasted, but had a short nationalisation Bill been introduced a large number of millions of pounds could have been saved for the public purse.
There must be a limit even to the right of a nationalised industry to defend itself on commercial lines as the Chancellor suggested. Is he suggesting that the most extravagant means possible must be used by such an industry to defend itself? Had R.T.B. to enter into the jungle of the Stock Market, to be at the mercy of other competitors and to give an answer to the other shareholders that the price had risen from 27s. 6d. before Christmas to 85s. 2d.?
This can be done only once. If a situation of this nature arose again and the other competitors knew that the Government were backing the nationalised concern, then the prices would go even higher. That is a fair warning to the Government. The industry badly needs reorganisation. We need only turn our attention for a moment to the independent re-rollers, but I am sure that there is no need for us to do this; other covetous eyes are doing it now,
Having regard to the fact that £1,000 million have been spent on this industry since the war, the fact remains that it is still not organised on sound economic lines. I am convinced that the only way in which it can be reorganised is through its reversion to public ownership. Had it remained in public ownership, powers would have been available to the Iron and Steel Corporation to deal with this problem and the crisis would never have arisen.
May I give a word of warning to other shareholders in other steel firms? Let them have no illusions that they will be treated as softly and as gently, when the time comes to bring the remainder of the steel industry into public ownership, as were the shareholders of Whitehead; they will not be treated in as generous a manner.
The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid), in the July debate, made a plaintive complaint when


he quoted the 1959 Tory election manifesto:
We are utterly opposed to any extension of nationalisation by whatever means.
The hon. Member has my sympathy. I appreciate the dilemma in which he and other hon. Members opposite find themselves today. I have noted, as I am sure he has, the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 12th February:
It remains the intention of Her Majesty's Government to complete the denationalisation of the steel industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February 1963; Vol. 671, c. 1101.]

Sir G. Nabarro: Hear, hear.

Mr. Morris: The hon. Member may say "Hear, hear", but unlike myself he has failed to notice the omission of the usual words from the Chancellor's declaration—the words "in the lifetime of this Parliament". I am sure that the hon. Member for Walsall, South also noted the omission of those words from the Chancellor's declaration of 12th February. I am sure that their omission is not without significance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. W. T. Rodgers) coined the phrase that we live in two nations. I am speaking tonight about the other nation which is not so prosperous. There are also two worlds. We live in a comparatively affluent world, but there is also another world, a hungry world. It seems a tragedy that our steel industry, which could be used to the advantage of everyone by producing the steel which the under-developed nations need, is not, in fact, being so used. As I have said, we live in two worlds, and the other world is a hungry and forgotten world. That is the tragedy of the steel industry and of the misuse of its capacity.

7.26 p.m.

Sir Gerald Nabarro: I rise to oppose the Motion. In due course I shall ask my hon. Friends to join me in the Lobby in voting it down. The Motion is a naked attempt on the part of the Labour Front Bench to reassert Clause 4 in their constitution following the election of their new leader. I am delighted to see him in his place.
The Motion is thoroughly disingenuous. There is nothing in it about nationalisation; that word is carefully omitted. The Motion concludes with the words:

… calls upon Her Majesty's Government to seek from Parliament the powers required to reorganise the structure and finances of the steel industry to serve the national interest.
The Motion was set on the Order Paper before the result of the vote for the new Leader of the Labour Party was known. It was put down before last Thursday, and it was carefully framed to disguise the intention to renationalise the industry. Had the losing candidate been elected, the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), who is known to be partial to the reform of Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution, there would have been no mention of renationalisation by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris). But the Left-wing candidate was elected, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), who is pledged to uphold Clause 4.

Mr. Joseph Harper: No.

Sir G. Nabarro: Yes he is. The hon. Member does not know his politics.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins: The hon. Member played on the left wing in the Pools television.

Sir G. Nabarro: No. I played on the right-wing, not on the left wing, and I am playing tonight on the right wing.
The right hon. Member for Huyton is pledged to Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution and to the renationalisation of the steel industry. I am delighted to see him in his place, and I congratulate him upon his election success. I shall look forward to having him as an opponent at the next General Election. At least we shall know that we are opposing Socialists, and we know exactly what their policy is. A lead has already been given by the right hon. Gentleman in the——

Mr. Harold Wilson: I heard the hon. Gentleman muttering something about Clause 4. I am glad that he understands it, because is the position of the whole party. He need not pick out any one hon. Member; it is the policy of the whole party. Having told us that he is looking forward to opposing us at the next General Election, will he now tell us what we shall be opposing?

Sir G. Nabarro: In due course I will do so.
I must follow my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman by saying how pleased I am to have his acceptance of my statement that he proposes to embark on a policy of the extension of nationalisation and the bringing into public ownership of all the means of production, distribution and exchange. That is Clause 4. The right hon. Gentleman has vigorously upheld it today.
In the context of steel, this is what the right hon. Gentleman had to say on 23rd March, 1961:
… the Labour Party stands four square and resolved behind the proposition that the steel industry must be renationalised, that this essential industry must be owned and controlled by the nation and accountable to the nation which it exists, or should exist, to serve."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd March, 1961; Vol. 637, c. 597.]
I prefer the unequivocating terms of the right hon. Gentleman on 23rd March, 1961, to the equivocation and evasion of his hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, who had not the courage to use that dirty word "nationalisation" in the Motion he put upon the Order Paper.

Mr. Morris: rose—

Sir G. Nabarro: No. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] The hon. Member for Aberavon will recall that after he had been speaking for ten minutes I rose and attempted to cause him to give way. He waved me down. I rose a second time. He waved me down again. He would not give way. The hon. Gentleman is mean and parsimonious. Contrariwise, I am always generous in Parliamentary debate and give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Morris: I am very grateful to the hon. Member. He has accused me of lacking in courage. I myself have consistently advocated the bringing of the whole of the steel industry back into public ownership. I did it at the General Election in 1959. I have done it frequently in debates in this House. I did it in the last debate we had on the steel industry on 27th July of last year, which I do not think the hon. Gentleman attended. For this point he should refer to Volume 663. column 1968.

Sir G. Nabarro: What I am complaining about is that the hon. Gentleman has not had the courage to use the word

"nationalisation" in the Motion. The reason for that I have explained carefully in the context of the vote for the Labour Party leadership last Thursday. There is also the fact that "nationalisation" is not only a very dirty word. It is a highly opprobrious word. It would offend the Liberal Party, which additionally is pledged to denationalisation and would be opposed to renationalisation. I am delighted to see the Liberal Chief Whip, the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade), and the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Liberal Party, in his place. I hope he will join me in the Lobby tonight when I oppose the Motion.
"Nationalisation" is a very dirty word. We are approaching a General Election. I have already extracted from the Leader of the Labour Party a confession of his close adherence to Clause 4. That is going to be very useful to me on the hustings. It is also going to be very useful to me that the entire Labour Party has now stated that it supports the renationalisation of the steel industry.
Renationalisation of steel is totally irrelevant to the problems of the industry today. Nationalisation in this context is a matter of administration and operational control. It is also a matter of ownership of shares, which I will deal with in a moment. It has no relevance to the under-capacity or under-employment of the steel industry today, an industry to the denationalisation of which I am glad to see that my party is pledged at the earliest possible moment. [An HON. MEMBER: "When do we start?"] We have completed denationalisation of over 90 per cent. of the industry. We have completed that denationalisation fairly and liberally both with a capital "L" and a small "l", liberally both to taxpayers and to shareholders, while promoting the continuous growth of the industry.

Mr. James Callaghan: The hon. Gentleman can say that again!

Sir G. Nabarro: The hon. Member must not, according to your instructions, Mr. Speaker, remain sedentary and shout at me. If he wants me to give way, I will give way. Does the hon. Gentleman want me to give way?

Mr. Callaghan: I have made my point.

Sir G. Nabarro: No, he has not. I could not hear the hon. Gentleman, because he remained sitting.

Mr. Callaghan: A lot of unemployment has been created.

Sir G. Nabarro: More sedentary interruptions! I must say that the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Labour Party does not measure up to the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Liberal Party, who observes the Parliamentary courtesies in these important matters. Save only for a temporary aberration to which I objected strongly, my party has continuously pursued the denationalisation of the steel industry.

Mr. Callaghan: What about unemployment?

Sir G. Nabarro: I shall deal with that. What a curious fellow the hon. Gentleman is? I repeat that, save only for that one aberration, my party has diligently pursued the denationalisation of the industry and has stated unequivocally during the last fortnight that it proposes to complete that denationalisation. I shall quote two manifests of that, which are sufficient for me, and I hope that they will be sufficient for my hon. Friends as well. On 12th February, 1963, in response to my Parliamentary Question to him, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said this:
It remains the intention of Her Majesty's Government to complete the denationalisation of the steel industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1963; Vol. 671, c. 1101.]

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: When?

Sir G. Nabarro: I will deal with that question later. Earlier, on 29th January, in response to a Private Notice Question, which you, Mr. Speaker, gave me permission to ask, concerning the Whitehead Iron and Steel dispute, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said this:
At the same time, it is my opinion that this action"—
that is, the Whitehead matter—
will make it easier rather than more difficult to complete the denationalisation of the steel industry. Anything which damages Richard Thomas and Baldwins will make it more difficult to transfer the firm back to private ownership.
Later my right hon. Friend said this:

Pending the denationalisation of Richard Thomas and Baldwins, it is our policy that it should operate as a commercial concern and protect itself as a commercial concern can do. In so doing, it will make it easier for ultimate denationalisation to take place."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January, 1963; Vol. 670. c. 760.]
In response to the intervention of the hon. Member who asked when denationalisation will be completed, the reply is: when the moment is propitious; when the stock market is in a good and receptive mood for the launching of such a large volume of stock upon it; when the Financial Times index of ordinary shares or equities has risen to 330 or above, taking with it in its train the value of steel shares. We missed an opportunity of denationalising after the last General Election. We should have denationalised Richard Thomas and Baldwins then. I am sorry to have hindsight in this matter. I am sorry that the Treasury Ministers were ill-advised. This is all a matter of history. However, with the new life being pumped into the economy during 1963 I have no doubt that the Financial Times index of equities will react appropriately during the next few months and we shall see it rise to 330 or more, when the time will be propitious to unload on the market a major part of Richard Thomas and Baldwins.
Here I want to make a point to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power, who I hope is to reply to the debate.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. John Peyton): The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. John Peyton) indicated assent.

Sir G. Nabarro: Please do not judge this problem of the denationalisation of Richard Thomas and Baldwins against the background that the whole company must be put on the stock market at once—certainly not. There is no reason why Whitehead Thomas should not be denationalised separately. There is no reason why other portions of Richard Thomas and Baldwins should not be denationalised. It is not necessary to do it completely in one operation.

Mr. Peyton: I apologise to my hon. Friend. I unwittingly misled him. It is not my intention to answer that part of the debate relating to Richard Thomas


and Baldwins and the Whitehead takeover. As it is a Treasury matter, that will be answered by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

Sir G. Nabarro: I do not mind which Minister answers it so long as we can have an assurance that there is no dogmatic adherence to denationalisation of this enormous chunk of investment, £240 million, in one operation. It should be denationalised piecemeal.
The fact is that we are pledged to this process. A part of it should be carried out in the lifetime of this Parliament, and I hope the remainder of it in in the next Parliament. [Laughter.] Oh, yes, I am out of step with the national and provincial Press. I believe that the Tory Party wins the next election. A few more debates like this, when I can draw out of the Opposition Front Bench their selfish adherences to Socialism, to Clause 4, and to extension of nationalisation, will assuredly help us to win the next General Election. I repeat that "nationalisation" is a dirty and opprobious term.

Mr. Cyril Bence: What about Baileys (Malta) Ltd.? Expropriation.

Sir G. Nabarro: May I turn to current operations in the steel industry?
It is, of course, true that the steel industry today is operating at 70 per cent. of capacity. The lighter end of the industry, and notably that sector producing sheet steel, is a good deal busier than the heavy section of the industry. That is a reflection of the under-employment of certain sections of our national economy. It is impossible to talk about reflationary measures within the steel industry alone isolated from reflationary measures for our entire economy. The exports of the iron and steel industry have been well maintained during the last year or two in the face of very fierce competition. In addition, I would remind the hon. Member for Aberavon—for in a typically Socialist fashion he isolated the British iron and steel industry from the remaining iron and steel industries of the Western world—that there is a worldwide recession in the demand for steel, and one cannot expect the British industry to sell more and more iron and steel Oft world markets in the face of a

general and international recession in the demand for steel.
But, notwithstanding all these factors, the British iron and steel industry has maintained its export market. To bring the demand for steel in this country from its present level of 70 per cent. up to a full capacity of 95 per cent. needs generous measures of reflation throughout our economy. I believe that a good start has been made in that matter and that we shall shortly be seeing the effects of these reflationary measures.
I name only a few of them. There have been three reductions in Bank Rate during the last twelve months. There has been the special release of more than £400 million of bank deposits. There has been a totally unprecedented reduction in the level of indirect taxation in the form of Purchase Tax. When the Socialist Party left office the Purchase Tax on motor cars was standing at the level of 66⅔ per cent. The motor industry, of course, is the biggest single consumer of iron and steel in this country. Reflation to the extent of reduction of Purchase Tax on motor cars has been carried out from 66⅔ per cent. down to 60 per cent., 55 per cent., 50 per cent., 45 per cent. and now 25 per cent. If the Nabarro plan for Purchase Tax is finally adopted it will be reduced to 16⅔ per cent., giving a further reflationary tendency.

Mr. Douglas Jay: What is the Nabarro plan for steel?

Sir G. Nabarro: I am coming to the Nabarro plan for steel. I ask, please, for the right hon. Gentleman's patience.
There has been a repayment of £42 million of post-war credits. There have been the important investment allowances for British industry announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Guy Fawkes Day and to be legislated for in the forthcoming Finance Bill. There have been grants to factories in development districts and the provision for advance factories. There has been a largely increased level of investment throughout the publicly-owned sector of industry. There has been the go-ahead for the Victoria Tube railway line, involving the consumption of very large tonnages of steel to help the heavy end of the steel industry. There have been the three tankers and the announcement about the Tay Bridge. All these, in the


aggregation, represent a large reflationary tendency for the iron and steel industry, and, in my judgment, within a few months will lift very largely the figure of 70 per cent. occupied capacity today to a figure of approximately 85 per cent. to 87 per cent., which is the estimate of the industry itself.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: If the hon. Member is taking such great credit for the new policy of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he says would help the steel industry, may I ask whether he is also accepting full responsibility for the policy of the Chancellor's predecessor, which is directly responsible for the dire state of unemployment from which the industry now suffers?

Sir G. Nabarro: No, that is not entirely true. The hon. Member sits for Penistone, in the centre of an important manufacturing and heavy industry area in the North.

Mr. Mendelson: The hon. Member is not answering my question.

Sir G. Nabarro: I am coming to that. I am merely showing the hon. Member the customary courtesies.

Mr. Bence: That is a change.

Sir G. Nabarro: It is in contradistinction to the hon. Member for Aberavon, who showed no courtesies at all.
The fact is that if the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) had looked back over the years to 1945 and had traced the progress and expansion of the whole of the steel industry during the last 18 years, he would have found that the industry had increased its capacity by far more than the overall average rate of growth in our economy over those 18 years. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East should not shout at me. After all, neither his hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon nor the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West, the Shadow Liberal Chancellor, nor the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, the Shadow Labour Chancellor, nor my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer can possibly look into the future and determine international demand for iron and steel over a fixture period of ten years.
We have to take a chance with investments in all industries in this country

as to what the level of demand will be, If I were so clever as to be able to sit down with the aid of expert advisers and say what the demand in ten years' time will be for coal, for coke, for oil and steel, and for Kidderminster carpets, I should be a millionaire. I could buy any kind of stock or share and he assured of rapid appreciation and growth, but the fact is that the economic tipsters——

Mr. Bence: The hon. Member is the biggest tipster we have.

Sir G. Nabarro: Maybe I am, but happen to be a successful tipster.
Economic tipsters, looking into the future, cannot be certain of the rate of growth in any particular industry. We can only make intelligent guesses. I put it in a few short words. Iron and steel in the last eighteen years has expanded by more than the demand from our national economy and from overseas has been capable of selling. That is temporarily the position. That is why many steel companies have curtailed parts of their expansion programmes.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said, "What is the Nabarro plan for steel?" There is one, I assure you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I have related how much I support the reflationary measures of my right hon. Friend to the economy generally and the important influence that they will have on the iron and steel industry, but there are other specific measures that I want to put to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary by which he can help the iron and steel industry. I put them under three or four headings. They are all controversial, but they are all tremendously important to the industry.
First, a disastrous decision was taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1961 to put a tax on fuel oil for industry. He fell for the propaganda of the National Union of Mineworkers, which wanted protection for coal against fuel oil. What has been the effect of this disastrous tax? The hon. Member for Aberavon left it out of his speech. He was afraid of the mineworkers' lodges in South Wales. That is all. He was running away from them. What he should have said, if he really purports to be a spokesman for the steel industry, was that the fuel oil duty cost Dorman Long and Co. Ltd., a major steel producer, 6s, 9d. per ton


on finished steel and reduced the competitiveness of its iron and steel products on the world's markets by that amount.
I call on the Chancellor to abolish the fuel oil duty outright in the forthcoming Budget on 3rd April. I do not expect the Financial Secretary to reply to that point this evening, but I have told him the implication of this. I speak with the whole iron and steel industry and the whole of British industry behind me in making this point. Of course, I shall have no support from the benches opposite, save only that of the Liberal Party.

Mr. Bence: The hon. Gentleman will.

Sir G. Nabarro: The hon. Member says that I will, but he is such a hypocrite in these matters.

Mr. Bence: On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman, who has been carrying on like this for eleven years, to call an hon. Member on this side of the House a hypocrite?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): It would be better if the hon. Gentleman did not use that phrase.

Sir G. Nabarro: I apologise at once to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I unreservedly withdraw the word. I did not mean anything offensive to the hon. Gentleman. What I meant was that he has turned turtle politically. I trust that you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, will deem that expression wholly unexceptionable in a Parliamentary sense.
I voted against the fuel oil duty in 1961. Only one other Tory Member did so, my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), whom I do not see here. A mixed bag from the Labour Party came into the Lobby with us; it depended whether they sat for mining constituencies. But the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) was not in the Lobby with me. I looked that up before I came here tonight. He did not support me in voting against the fuel oil duty. He was protecting the vested interests of the lodges of the National Union of Mineworkers, who wanted a price protection for coal at the behest of Lord Robens, and the Treasury shamefully bowed to those blandishments. I hope that on 3rd April it will reverse its decision.
The second point is equally important. [Interruption.] It is my duty to oppose the Motion. I know that it is hurting the hon. Gentleman. Does he want to intervene?

Mr. Callaghan: rose—

Sir G. Nabarro: At last the hon. Gentleman has got up.

Mr. Callaghan: I realise that we are having the speech which the hon. Gentleman might have made to the ladies' Toc "H" last week-end, and I hope that he will take up the suggestion that he should send his fee from appearing on the football pool panel to some local charity. The real point that I want to make to him is that a number of hon. Members wish to speak. He has already spoken for half an hour, and the debate finishes at ten o'clock. He is one of those few hon. Members who never uses one word when five words will do.

Sir G. Nabarro: I do not know the purpose of that intervention. Like most utterances of the hon. Member, it was both offensive and irrelevant. No doubt he is trying to outbid the Liberal Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think he will, because the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West is a polite fellow.
I turn to the question of imported coal and quote from Colville's magazine, the organ of the Colville Group, winter 1962–63:
Thanks mainly to the bounty of nature, North American coking coal of very good quality is now freely available. More than that it is likely to remain that way for as long ahead as anyone can foresee, and can, in fact, be bought forward on long term contracts at assured prices. … It is, moreover, of extra good quality. That would offer further material savings in coke processing and in furnace usage.
Colville's applied to the Ministry to be allowed to import American coking coal because it would reduce the cost of finished steel produced from its mills in Scotland, including the new Ravenscraig mill, but the Government denied them the right to bring in that American coal.
The Government, therefore, are putting two disabilties on the steel industry. First, they are adding an average of 6s. 9d. per ton of finished steel by the fuel oil duty. Secondly, they are forcing both the Steel Company of Wales and


Colville's to buy coking coal at artificially high prices. They are denying them the right to buy the essential raw material of their industry in the cheapest market.
It is futile, in my judgment, for Her Majesty's Ministers to tell the steel industry to reduce its costs, on the one hand, and, on the other, to cause it to inflate costs by putting these disabilities on it.

Mr. J. T. Price: It might be futile to the hon. Member that the Government should take this action, with which we on this side happen to agree, but it would be even more futile and undesirable that they should take action which would put large numbers of British miners out of work. Has the hon. Gentleman no regard for the natural raw materials of this country? I know that we can argue about this all night and that other hon. Members wish to speak, but if the hon. Gentleman thinks that he can shut this up in watertight compartments and have this country's industry disrupted and dislocated in this way without regard for our natural resources, he will not find many of his hon. Friends agreeing with him——

Sir G. Nabarro: rose—

Mr. Price: —not only in respect of coal, but in respect of other things.

Sir G. Nabarro: Has the hon. Gentleman finished? I allowed him to make a very long intervention. This policy would not result in miners being displaced. If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to do his homework and had read my many speeches on Scottish fuel and power, including the whole of the evidence which I gave at great length to the Mackenzie Committee in Edinburgh——

Mr. Archie Manuel: All wrong.

Sir G. Nabarro: —on 27th November, 1961, a typescript of which I will make available to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) if he desires it, he would have found that no Scottish miners would be displaced. Moreover, we require from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a real boom budget on 3rd April, a highly reflationary Budget, with, I recommend, total tax reductions at an aggregate figure of £300 million, or more.
Fourthly and last, we ought to bring the Iron and Steel Board before the Restrictive Trade Practices Court so that the minimum-maximum pricing arrangement to which the hon. Member for Aberavon referred might be fully investigated. It is painfully the fact that the Restrictive Trade Practices Court has been sitting for six long years. It has investigated everything from nuts and bolts to carpets and to water tube boilers. Our basic industry, the iron and steel industry, in which maximum prices are minimum prices and minimum prices are maximum prices, arranged by the Iron and Steel Board to suit the convenience of producers and highly damaging to our manufacturing industry, has not vet been investigated before the Court.
I appeal to my right hon. Friend to take urgent steps to see that these steel prices are investigated and that agreements which in the terms of the Act are injurious to the consuming interests should be broken and deemed illegal.
With those few words, I appeal to all my right hon. and hon. Friends, together with the seven Liberal Members, two only of whom are at present in their places—I hope that the Chief Whip of the Liberal Party will bring in the other five before ten o'clock—to vote against the Motion, to vote it down and to give an affirmative declaration to the country that the Tories in this Parliament do not believe in an extension of nationalisation or of renationalisation of any part of the steel industry.

Mr. Callaghan: I rise to a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, about the conduct of the debate. We have just had what can only be construed as a very long speech in a three-hour debate and I understand from an intervention by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power that we are to have two Government spokesmen. Is it not possible to compress both those speeches into one and so give somebody else an opportunity to speak?

Mr. Peyton: I do not know whether the hon. Member has taken the opportunity to speak to his hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris). As it is his Motion that we are debating, I asked the hon. Member whether it would be convenient and acceptable to him that two Members should speak from the Government Front Bench as briefly as


possible, my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to answer the point, which the hon. Member told me he would raise, concerning Richard Thomas and Baldwins and Whitehead, and myself to answer the other points concerning the rest of the industry. The hon. Member for Aberavon said that that arrangement would be acceptable and convenient to him.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I allowed this exchange to take place, but there is no point of order in it.

Mr. Callaghan: I follow that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was raising a question of procedure, because, whatever the Parliamentary Secretary may think, it is a matter of convenience to the House that in a short debate like this there should be as many speakers as possible. I should not have thought it beyond the wisdom of the Government, in view of the length of speech to which we have just heard, to compress both Front Bench speeches into one.

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Member is not helping——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. We had better get on and save time.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. Donald Wade: I have spoken recently on the subject of unemployment and I shall resist the temptation to do so again tonight. I merely say that I share the concern of the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) about the level of unemployment. I shall also resist the temptation to speak at the same length as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro). I shall not be quite as liberal in the use of words as the hon. Member has been in this debate.
I propose to direct my few remarks to the latter part of the Motion. I do not agree with the whole of the Motion and I do not agree with all the observations of the hon. Member for Aberavon, who moved it, but I agree with him when he
notes with concern the unsatisfactory means by which
the take-over was achieved. It seems to me that this whole strange affair has involved a number of important principles and not only the question of nationalisation versus private ownership.
In a supplementary question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 12th February, I said:
Apart from the inconsistencies referred to by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro), are there not still wider issues involved? Is it satisfactory that the outcome of a take-over bid—a battle of this nature involving important questions of public interest—should be solely dependent on the amount of the bribe which the respective competitors could offer to the shareholders of the firm to be taken over? Does that still represent Government policy, however important the merger or take-over may be?
The only reply I got from the Chancellor was:
I am surprised to hear a representative of the Liberal Party, a believer in the market economy, describing a bid as a bribe."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1963; Vol. 671, c. 1103.]
If "bribe" is regarded as unfair, I am quite willing to replace it with, say. "financial inducement". The fact remains, however, that this issue was decided solely by the question of which competitor in the battle offered the biggest financial inducement—and one of those sides had the backing of the Government. One is bound to ask oneself whether Richard Thomas and Baldwins would have succeeded if that concern had not been supported by the Government. I very much doubt whether it would have found the money. It should be remembered that in this case the Government represent the taxpayer.
I gather from the observations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he regards the whole transaction as merely the normal activity in a market economy. I wonder whether by that he means a free market economy, because I find it difficult to regard the present set-up of the steel industry as coming under the heading of a free market economy as we generally understand it. It is unrealistic to regard this kind of take-over battle as part of a normal activity of the market economy. If surprise is to be expressed, it should be at the words used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in describing the whole of this transaction.
Surely, some method could be devised whereby the national interest is considered impartially before a transaction of this kind takes effect. I am not suggesting that there should be no mergers and no take-overs. I believe in the necessity for a mixed economy and that in the free sector of the economy there will inevitably be take-overs and mergers.


It would be unreasonable to argue that every one must be judged by a body set up by the Government.
Surely, however, we must accept that some of these take-overs involve important questions of national interest, directly or indirectly. We have had a number of examples in recent years. We have had the Daily Mirror taking over Odhams and there was the I.C.I. attempt to take over Courtaulds. All along, the policy of the Government has been to do nothing whatever about it.
It is true that the circumstances of the present case are somewhat different from those large mergers, but there is in common the fact that the national interest is clearly involved. There are important considerations both for and against the take-over by Richard Thomas and Baldwins. There is the whole question of the efficiency of the industry and the question of the maintenance of a price ring. There is the question whether we should continue to import Canadian steel. This is an additional complication.
The Whitehead Iron and Steel Company has been buying a substantial part of its steel from Canada at lower prices than it has been paying to Richard Thomas and Baldwins. We do not know what will happen if it becomes a subsidiary of Richard Thomas and Baldwins or if it had become a subsidiary of Stewarts and Lloyds. Will Whitehead's own customers in British industry lose the benefit of cheap Canadian steel? We do not know, but the point I wish to make is that the whole question of the national interest and the need for some procedure for considering the national interest seem to have been ignored.

Mr. Morris: I thought I had dealt with that in my speech, that that factor had had been raised in The Guardian article on 30th January this year, and there is no question, as I understand it, of any benefit being passed on to British industry of the Whitehead product being sold at the Iron and Steel Board's price.

Mr. Wade: Yes, I appreciate the hon. Member's point, but I do not think that it affects the argument which I am deploying.
A number of factors affecting both the steel industry and the national interest have not been taken into account. In fact,

they cannot be taken into account if the transaction is just regarded as an ordinary commercial battle.
I notice that the ideological approach of hon. Members to public ownership has affected their attitude to this case. We have had hon. Members opposite getting very excited because this would appear to assist the continued nationalisation of a certain sector. On the other hand, we have had hon. Members on this side enthusiastically supporting Richard Thomas and Baldwins because at present that company is owned indirectly by the State.
I am bound to wonder whether that same enthusiasm for supporting Richard Thomas and Baldwins would have been evident if this had been merely a battle between two private companies. I very much doubt it.

Mr. Michael Foot: Whatever the hon. Member may think about that point, does he not think he ought to take into account, in passing judgment, who was the aggressor? Whom does he think was the aggressor in this business?

Sir G. Nabarro: There was nothing aggressive about it.

Mr. Wade: This was a battle——

Mr. M. Foot: Who was the aggressor?

Mr. Wade: I have no doubt about it. It was Stewarts and Lloyds who started the battle. I do not question that for a moment.

Sir G. Nabarro: There was nothing discreditable about Stewarts and Lloyds making for the integration of Whitehead in its organisation, which would have led to the employment of British billets and more economic production of rolled and rerolled steel products.

Mr. M. Foot: On a point of order. If the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro) is to get up and talk about Stewarts and Lloyds, should he not declare his personal interest in it?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is customary for anybody with a personal interest to declare it.

Sir G. Nabarro: I at once declare to a personal interest.

Mr. M. Foot: Why not earlier?

Sir G. Nabarro: I did not mention Stewarts and Lloyds in my speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I will do now. I am a shareholder, both in Richard Thomas and Baldwins as a taxpayer, and in Stewarts and Lloyds, and, therefore, an utterly impartial person.

Mr. Wade: I find it somewhat difficult to follow the hon. Member for Kidderminster. If he had an interest, I wish that he had stated it earlier.
However, I am most anxious to stick to the one point which I am trying to make in what should have been a debate in which several Members could have taken part. First, I can see nothing but harm to an industry by subjecting it to the threat of nationalisation, denationalisation and renationalisation. If the Government intended to denationalise steel, I wish that they had got on with it. On the other hand, I regret—I still regret—the policy of the Labour Party to renationalise steel. I have not altered my views in that respect. That is point No. 1.

Sir G. Nabarro: Vote with us.

Mr. Wade: Secondly, I think that there should be some objective test where the national interest is involved in these take-over battles. Thirdly, where the State is one party to the battle I think that it is all the more important that the issues should be decided by some independent body.
It seems to me that the Government have tried to get away with two points, first, that this was merely a normal commercial transaction, and, secondly, that this particular take-over would assist them in their policy of denationalisation. I find it very difficult to accept either view. It seems to me that the Government have ignored some of the great underlying issues here, and so far we have not had an adequate explanation.

8.15 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power has already explained, he hopes to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, later in the debate to deal with the more general matters

affecting the steel industry which were touched upon by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris), but I think that it would be helpful if briefly I were to say something about the specific question of Richard Thomas and Baldwins and the acquisition by that company of control of Whitehead's.
After all, this is a matter which has been referred to by every speaker in the debate so far. I shall certainly do my best to take no longer in dealing with this particular matter than would have been taken by my hon. Friend if he had been dealing with it in his winding-up speech.
There are, I think, really two aspects to be considered. First, the more general question of principle which, I know, has troubled many of my hon. Friends, that is to say, whether the Government and the Agency were right as a matter of principle to allow Richard Thomas and Baldwins, a nationalized company, to intervene at all. I want to assure the House that this decision was not taken lightly nor, indeed, without considerable reluctance, because other things being equal I think that nobody in his right senses today wants to see an extension of the nationalised sector.
However, we were faced with the prospect of serious and lasting damage to Richard Thomas and Baldwins if Stewarts and Lloyds bid had been successful, and, of course, we had to consider not only the damage to a valuable public asset, but also the undoubted fact, as has already been pointed out, that if Richard Thomas and Baldwins had lost the custom of Whitehead's the denationalisation of Richard Thomas and Baldwins would have been made more difficult. So we reached the conclusion that it would be wrong to debar Richard Thomas and Baldwins from normal commercial action in defence of its interests solely because of its nationalised status. Of course, one should remember that, as has been pointed out, it was not Richard Thomas and Baldwins which took the initiative.
On the second aspect, it is right to consider, first, whether, having decided to allow Richard Thomas and Baldwins to intervene at all, the eventual outcome, and particularly the price which was paid, was reasonable. Of course, I


recognise that the hon. Member for Aberavon would not have made any offer as we did. He would simply have acquired the company compulsorily, which, after all, is the essence of nationalisation. But I think that on this question of the eventual outcome and whether it was reasonable there are really three questions that I should like to touch on every briefly.
First, people have asked, "Was not the take-over battle really a farce?"—because one of the contestants had behind him, so it was alleged, the bottomless purse of the Exchequer. Put in this way the question overlooks two important considerations. First, at every stage the Government were in the closest touch with the Agency and with Richard Thomas and Baldwins; and, secondly, there was no question whatever of Richard Thomas and Baldwins having carte blanche to bid whatever might have been necessary to secure the control of Whitehead's.

Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: I am so glad that my hon. Friend has mentioned that point. Could he make it clear to all of us, because we want clarification of this point—how the bankers and brokers representing Richard Thomas and Baldwins were in a position to say to the whole of Whitehead's shareholders that they would match the winning hid whatever it was?

Mr. Barber: I shall in a moment deal with the actual final bid of 85s. 3d. But the point I am making at this stage—I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept this from me—is that throughout the whole operation the Government, the Agency, Richard Thomas and Baldwins and their advisers all proceeded on the basis that the governing factors were commercial.
This leads to the second question which has to be considered, and that is the price, and, in particular, the final bid of 85s. 3d. It is, of course, all too easy to make the unreal and superficial comparison which was made by one hon. Member opposite between the price of 85s. 3d. and the denationalisation price of Whitehead's shares—27s. 6d. But such a comparison overlooks three important considerations. First, since denationalisation Whitehead has retained in the business £3,600,000 worth of profits.

If we add this to the £3,400,000 which was the value of the shares in 1955, that suggests a value of at least £7 million, or nearly £3 a share.
But there is another consideration, and that is that Richard Thomas & Baldwins was not concerned solely with the present value of Whitehead as an investment, because, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already pointed out, some of the consequences of Richard Thomas and Baldwins losing the custom of Whitehead would have been very serious indeed. In fact, over their last five financial years Whitehead and Whitehead Thomas, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir. G. Nabarro) referred, have been responsible annually for 10 to 11 per cent. of Richard Thomas and Baldwins' total turnover. Even more strikingly, they have bought over the same period between 53 and 57 per cent. annually of all the billets produced by Richard Thomas and Baldwins at Redbourn and in West Wales, and over the same five years Whitehead's purchases from Richard Thomas and Baldwins accounted for 84 to 89 per cent. of its total requirements of steel.
If Whitehead's long-standing business connections with Richard Thomas and Baldwins had been severed, the immediate consequences would almost certainly have included the closing down of Richard Thomas and Baldwins' Gowerton Works in West Wales, where about 500 men are employed, and serious unemployment at Redbourn and the same at Ebbw Vale.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: As Stewarts and Lloyds have not got Whitehead, does this mean that there will be serious unemployment at Stewarts and Lloyds?

Mr. Barber: No, Sir. I am sorry if I have not made the position clear already.
Perhaps I may do so by giving my hon. Friend another fact which I think will make it clear. The position in relation to Richard Thomas and Baldwins was that because of its close connections with Whitehead, if it had lost the custom of that company it would inevitably have meant that a number of people would have become unemployed. Perhaps I can give my hon. Friend a


figure which, I think, will explain what I mean. So far as we can estimate, the cost to Richard Thomas and Baldwins of losing the custom of Whitehead would have been about £10 million worth of business a year.
I mention these points because I think it is of importance, when considering whether or not the Government were right to authorise what was done, to bear in mind what the effect on Richard Thomas and Baldwins, which is, after all, a publicly-owned asset at the present time, would have been if we had not allowed Richard Thomas and Baldwins to behave as any other normal commercial company in private enterprise would have behaved.

Mr. A. R. Wise: Will my hon. Friend remember that this is exactly the same argument that Richard Thomas and Baldwins used previously when it wanted to devastate half North Oxfordshire, but it was turned down and did not come back for it?

Mr. Barber: The issue then, if I remember aright—it does not come within my province—was precisely the same as the issue with which we are concerned now, and that is: What is in the national interest? We should bear in mind that Richard Thomas and Baldwins is still, unhappily, a publicly-owned asset, and so I think it was right on this occasion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Unhappily?"] I will explain that to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, because it seems to be unfamiliar to them. I say "unhappily" because at at least two General Elections the electorate has come out decisively in rejecting the renationalisation of the steel industry.
I would make the final point on the question of price, that one should not overlook the fact that Stewarts and Lloyds, a company, after all, in the private sector, on the basis solely of its commercial judgment was prepared to pay 85s. a share to acquire the business, and we were satisfied that it was worth at least as much to Richard Thomas and Baldwins.
In conclusion, perhaps I may make two points. First, if Richard Thomas and Baldwins had not been allowed to bid for Whitehead, the effect on Richard Thomas and Baldwins, I think everyone

would agree, would have been very serious indeed. I have already mentioned, in passing, to my hon. Friend the prospect of losing about £10 million of business a year. In fact, the loss of Whitehead's business could have entailed a substantial write-off of our investment in Richard Thomas and Baldwins' including a great part of the £23 million recently spent in modernising the Redbourne Works. One of our main objectives was to safeguard the taxpayer from the loss that would undoubtedly arise if Stewarts and Lloyds had acquired Whitehead.
The other point that I want to make is that there can be no doubt that if Richard Thomas and Baldwins had lost the business of Whitehead the denationalisation of Richard Thomas and Baldwins would have been made just that much more difficult.

Mr. Callaghan: Will the hon. Gentleman explain to us why it has been advantageous to the taxpayer to sell Whitehead back at a price of rather under £5 million to private hands and then buy it again for £10 million? How much would it have saved the taxpayer if it had remained in public hands?

Mr. Barber: I think that the hon. Gentleman must have been out of the Chamber about five minutes ago when I was explaining this—if he really can understand it. I find it difficult to believe that he did not understand it if he was listening.
Since the date when Whitehead was denationalised there has been an addition of £3,600,000 to the value of the company in the form of retained profits. I also explained, and I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would have understood this—I really do not want to take up too much of the time of the House—that there was the other consideration that we were not concerned solely with the present value of Whitehead as an investment.

Mr. Callaghan: Is it, then, the position that if we had not sold the firm in the first place the public would have had the advantage of the £3 million which we have now had to pay for once again, and that we have, in fact, lost £5 million through the idiotic decision to sell it in the first place?

Mr. Barber: No, Sir. That is the most utter nonsense. [Horn. MEMBERS: "Oh."]


Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will just bear in mind for a moment the fact that Stewarts and Lloyds, because of what had intervened since the time when Whitehead was denationalised, had itself offered 85s. a share. So we came to the conclusion that it was worth at least as much to us.

Mr. Callaghan: What a lot of rubbish!

Mr. Barber: I know why the hon. Gentleman says, "What a lot of rubbish". The fact is that he has been needled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, that is absolutely true. My hon. Friend said that with the change of leadership in the Labour Party—[Interruption.] Oh, yes; hon. Members must take it—we shall most certainly be hearing a good deal more now about nationalisation, and not only the nationalisation of the steel industry. The right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), who could not take it and has now left the Chamber, has already named a number of other industries.

Sir G. Nabarro: There is so much noise from the benches opposite that I could not follow my hon. Friend's words. Do I understand him to be precisely confirming my interpretation of the position in regard to Clause Four—that the Labour Party has now pledged itself to Clause Four and, therefore, to a wholesale extension of nationalisation? That is the issue.

Mr. Barber: That is certainly my understanding of what was said. I go further and point out that the new Leader of the Opposition has already named a number of industries which he considers to be ripe for nationalisation. What is even more dangerously subtle is that he is on record quite recently as calling for the creation of new publicly-owned industries which are wholly unspecified.

Mr. Callaghan: rose—

Mr. Barber: No. I cannot give way.

Mr. Callaghan: The hon. Gentleman is not dealing with the subject. He might as well give way.

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. If the Financial Secretary will not give way, the

hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East cannot remain on his feet.

Mr. Barber: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Callaghan: I am obliged.
When the hon. Gentleman has finished playing politics, will he not confirm that it is a fact that if the Government had not sold Whitehead in the first place the taxpayers would be about £5 million better off today? Is it not a fact that nationalisation seems to be a very good investment indeed in the steel industry and that the taxpayers will think it a great pity that the Government ever sold Whitehead?

Mr. Barber: The answer is simple and brief. It is not a fact, and the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that it is not.

Mr. Manuel: What is not a fact?

Mr. Barber: What is a fact is that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is aiming for what he, at least, has frankly admitted to be a substantial extension of public ownership. As far as we are concerned, it is our firm resolve to return Richard Thomas and Baldwins to private ownership.

8.32 p.m.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu (Brigg): The Government have had such a bad hammering in the last hour or two, continuing with the lamentable speech by the Financial Secretary—who generally does much better—that it is time I congratulated them on something. I want to repeat what has already been said from this side of the House—that they are to be congratulated on having stood up for Richard Thomas and Baldwins both on the question of denationalising the firm—although I do not think that it is nationalised in the accepted sense of the word; rather is it nationally owned—and for having intrinsically taken the right side in this matter.
Apart from the intrinsic merits of their action, there has been the attack from the quarters behind the Government. I should imagine that from the political point of view in the country it is by no means a bad thing for the Government that they have stood up to the sort of opposition they have had from the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro), who


so lamentably uses this place to draw attention to himself even if at the same time he brings disrepute to this House. It is a sad circumstance that he should use this House for the very heavy-handed self-display of which he gives us so much.
There is no reason at all, other than a doctrinaire reason, for wanting to bring this great concern out of national ownership. It has been a most excellent concern. It has not fallen down in any way on its obligations to the taxpayer since it was nationally owned, and if the Government have any idea of fulfilling their pledge to take the firm out of national ownership, then at least they should show in what way it has fallen down on its duties to the taxpayer since it was nationally owned.

Mr. Wise: Has the hon. and learned Gentleman read the chairman's last report and his forecast for next year's prospects?

Mr. Mallalieu: Yes, and I am coming to that. A great deal has been said about this, and I will deal with it now, since the hon. Gentleman has raised it at this point. Because hon. Members opposite have failed to persuade the Government either to prevent this take-over or—so far at any rate—to take Richard Thomas and Baldwins out of national ownership, they have been trying to put about the story that the firm is the sick man of the steel industry. It has had an exceptionally bad year because it had a stab in the back from Whitehead. We have been told to what a great extent Richard Thomas and Baldwins is dependent upon the commercial help of orders from Whitehead. We know also, because we have had this discussion before in the House, that the chairman of Whitehead was none other than the vice-chairman of R.T.B. and that he was supposed to owe duties to both concerns, the interests of which were diametrically opposed. How he can do it, I do not know.
When I put this to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power in a recent debate I was unable to get a decent answer. All the hon. Gentleman gave in reply was a pompous lecture. I asked him to give me a proper answer, but he failed to do so.

Mr. Peyton: When it comes to pompous sort of lectures there are few to

beat the hon. and learned Member. He has made a very round attack. I repeat what I said in the Adjournment debate when he raised this question. It does not do good or help the cause if one casts doubt on everybody's motives for miles around.

Mr. Manuel: You might as well have stayed asleep.

Mr. Mallalieu: While we have been trying to persuade the Government to do the right thing, opponents of the Government on the benches opposite have tried to show that this firm was not a fit concern or viable and was the sick man of the industry.
Over the last ten years an average of £10 million of profit has gone into the national Exchequer—into the taxpayer's pocket—because of the excellent activities of R.T.B. It has been extending its enterprise largely at Government instigation and has managed to keep its head above water in a magnificent way. When the profits start coming in again, as they will most certainly as soon as the running in of the works at Redbourne in my constituency and the works at Newport has been completed, it may well be that Members opposite who cast aspersions most strongly on this great concern will find themselves very much confounded. The firm had a bad year in 1962. This was because it was stabbed in the back. All the trade which Whitehead had given to R.T.B. was suddenly withdrawn in most undesirable circumstances, and the Government did nothing to put the matter right.
The matter of interlocking directorships is one of the concerns which is of very great importance in the steel industry. How can it be right that a director should be a director of two firms, trying to serve each of them, but each of them having contrary interests? What have the Government done since that Adjournment debate? All the Parliamentary Secretary can do is to give us further pompous lectures. That is not a very good advertisement for his Government, and I should like to help his Government, because it is in such a bad way. Altogether, the Government are to be congratulated, and I should like to tell them so, for what they have done in standing up to the sort of pressure to which they have been subjected.

Mr. Bence: They will lose 100 seats.

Mr. Mallalieu: Richard Thomas and Baldwins must be in an extremely robust state, because although it has charged a good deal of the expenses of its new enterprises to income—and it has had no profits from those enterprises, because of the running-in period—it has been able to hold its head above water. It owes a certain amount of money to various people.

Hon. Members: It is in debt.

Mr. Bence: So is Colvilles.

Mr. Mallalieu: It is said that R.T.B. is in debt as though that is a shocking thing to be. Is it not a sign of enterprise to be in debt if one has borrowed the money in order to make developments? Who was it who asked the firm to conduct that enterprise if it was not the Government? The Government did so because they regarded it as one of the most efficient firms in the country. However, I should like the Government to do something about interlocking directorships, because it does not look as though play was fair. It looks as though somebody was juggling with people's livelihoods.
The whole of the steel industry is in a topsy-turvy, Alice-in-Wonderland state. Canadian dumping is taking place. I know that I was reprimanded for using that word, but it has been used in very respectable sources since. By "dumping", in case hon. Members opposite do not know, I mean importing goods into this country at below cost of production. There has unquestionably been dumping by the Canadians of steel and there has unquestionably been dumping by our producers in other countries. Is not that a topsy-turvy state of affairs? Will not the Government try to do something about it? I know that their writ does not run in Canada or in other foreign countries, but is it not possible to initiate talks on this subject and try to organise the industry internationally in such a way that there will not be this nonsense of paying for the transport of each other's steel to be dumped in each other's country? This seems a ridiculous state of affairs.
The law of the jungle is very much operative in the steel industry. That is all right so long as there is enough to go round, but when there is not the pinch is

felt, and it would be far better to organise the industry so that there was enough to go round, or, if there was not, so that what there was was at least properly shared. The Government have done something in that way by their treatment of Richard Thomas and Baldwins.
There is such a thing as a proposal for a bridge across the Humber. In Scunthorpe, which is nearby, the steel industry is working at little over two-thirds capacity, but we have unlimited slag for the filling in of the approaches to such a bridge. The steel industry there could be made to work to much greater capacity than at present if the Humber Bridge were built. Why are the Government holding back? They have always said that they could not go ahead because there were other things which were more important and they did not want this project to compete for scarce raw materials and scarce labour. There are no scarce raw materials or scarce labour in respect of two of the most important ingredients of the bridge—slag for the approaches and steel for the bridge itself. Cannot something be done?
We hear much about unemployment in Scotland and the North-East, but I assure hon. Members that, greatly though the people of Scunthorpe and region sympathise with those in the North-East who have been the victims of an absence of sensible planning by the Government, in Scunthorpe and Barton-on-Humber, which is where the bridge would be built, and the whole region there is considerable unemployment, both open and, even more considerable, disguised in the form of part-time and so on. The Government ought at last to take notice of these things and sensibly to plan the whole industry and see that our resources are put to proper use.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. David Webster: The hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) seemed to divide his speech into two parts. In the first part he disposed of his surplus slag to build a bridge, and in the second part he disposed of his surplus spleen on my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I think that my hon. Friend is capable of dealing with that.
The hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) has my congratulations on his


luck in the draw, and on raising this important matter of steel. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the contents of the Rochdale Report, allegedly as an attack on private enterprise and Conservative administration. Perhaps I might read what the Report says about Newport. Paragraph 539 says:
The amount of ore needed by their Ebbw Vale works and their new Spencer works at Llanwern is likely to increase very considerably in future and three possible plans for bringing it in, in larger ore-carriers than can use the port at present, have been put forward.
The Report also states that this massive new steel works is very much circumscribed because of the size of the ore carriers which can be brought into Port Talbot Docks, which are entirely used to feed the steel works at present. In fact, the Report says that no ships bigger than about 10,000 deadweight tons can use these docks.
The hon. Gentleman got away with that as an indictment against the Government. I say that it is an indictment against nationalisation, because both docks have been owned and administered by the British Transport Commission for the last fifteen years. It is important that these docks should be put right, and that the advantages of mass production should be brought into the ore carriers so that the industry can take advantage of these improvements.
If I might talk about some of the technical advantages in the industry, it is interesting to go back about seventy or eighty years when, as a result of Gilchrist Thomas, who, I suppose, was a Scotsman, trying to adapt the steel works to the ores of Cleveland and the black ban ore belt of Scotland produced the Bessemer process. It is interesting to note that as a result the ores of the Minette orefield in Western Europe came into action, and instead of a situation in which Great Britain produced more than the steel tonnage of the rest of the world together, within twenty years we dropped to third place in our capacity of steel production. We sometimes think of Gilchrist Thomas rather uncharitably as a result.
This type of process began to be practically useless in this country, and the British Standards Institution would not allow the Bessemer process to be used in this country for about ten years. We

are now facing the situation in which, under modern new inventions, this process is coming back into its own and assisting British steel works to improve their competitive capacity against the Continent. This is an interesting and worth-while thing to consider.
It also presents an immense challenge to the steel industry of this country. We know that in recent years capacity has gone up from 20 million tons to a projected capacity—which I have criticised in the past as being far too optimistic—in two years of 34 million tons. It is most certainly true that the steel industry can fulfil the N.E.D.C. requirement of a 4 per cent. increase of gross national production.

Mr. Winterbottom: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the expected tonnage for 1962 has been declared to be 20·6 million tons, despite the productive capacity of the industry; that this figure is lower than it was last year, which in turn was lower than the figure for the year before? Is he aware that the 1962 figure is the lowest since the present Prime Minister came into power? That is the situation we have to face against the background of this debate.

Mr. Webster: I was accustomed to receiving assistance from the late Member for Rotherham, Mr. Jack Jones, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for assisting me. I appreciate that the figure is the lowest since 1957, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise) has said, bears comparison with Socialist fears of a shortage of steel if the industry is denationalised.
It also drives home the falsity of the argument adduced by hon. Members opposite time and time again that the steel industry is being bled white by the shareholders. That cannot be said today, because the shareholders have been very forbearing in times of prosperity. In the case of Whiteheads they have ploughed back £3 million of their own assets into the industry, and over the whole industry they have been taking only about one quarter of their earnings in dividends.
Today, when the loss is in the equity element of the industry, that loss is being taken not by the State but by the private, capitalist shareholder, whom the Socialist Party attacks again and again. It should be pointed out that we do not like the


taxpayers to take the ordinary equity risk in industry. They may be allowed to take the risk of a debenture, secured against assets, but not an ordinary equity risk.

Mr. Winterbottom: The hon. Member is trying to evade a very simple issue, namely, that the steel industry is about the best barometer of the success or failure of the British economy, and that the failure of the steel industry, in terms of the last Steel Act, is indicative of the inability and incapacity of the Government to deal with our economy.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It is customary for an hon. Member who has the Floor to give way to enable another hon. Member to ask a question for elucidation, but in this case the hon. Member is coming very near to making a speech.

Mr. Webster: Out of courtesy to other hon. Members who seek to speak in the debate, I shall not give way to the hon. Member again, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
The industry has done a tremendous amount to increase its capacity. In fact, not only has it increased its capacity but it has increased the technical efficiency of that capacity.
There is another and possibly ironical point that we should note. Today, there is no great risk of a "stop-go" type of economy in the steel industry because of an excess of capacity. We are not going to have people in trouble over their stockholdings—people who, when they thought there was going to be a shortage of capacity, ordered more stock and thus put more strain on the industry. That, at least, has been got rid of. We ought not to forget that this is happening not only in this country, but in Germany. There, there have also been considerable increases in capacity. Firms are working at a capacity of about 70 per cent. This is not a situation which is peculiar to this country.

Mr. Winterbottom: rose—

Mr. Webster: I am not going to give way to the hon. Member again. He is doing an up-and-down trick. He had better sit down until he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.
Over the whole industry about 69 per cent. of the average capacity is being

utilised—about 75 per cent. capacity in the strip mills and 65 per cent. capacity in the rest of the industry. This does not bear evenly throughout the industry.
The point that I am concerned about is that some of the new processes have not only definitely improved capacity and efficiency but are making the industry much more competitive with Europe. We are reaching the time when we should scrap much of that part of the industry which is not working efficiently. We ought to concentrate on these new processes, such as the L.D. process—a phrase which slips swiftly off the tongue, but which is really short for the Linzer-Düsenverfahren process. This process now has a world capacity of 22 million tons. In this process oxygen is placed above the converter and is played on to the top of the converter.
This is a most useful process. It is producing the open hearth quality type of steel with much less capital investment cost to the industry. It is, however, a very fast process. This is one of the limitations which makes it difficult for the process to be used for special steels where a precise analysis can be obtained. I understand that with the use of computers this has been brought considerably under control.
One of the facts which we must remember is the challenge that we are getting from abroad in this new type of process. According to the latest figures that I have, a total world capacity of 22 million tons today will be in 1965 a world capacity of 70 million tons. There will be 80 plants in 22 different countries. Our capacity today, as I understand it, is six plants with a total capacity of 4 million tons. Japan will have 20 plants with a 13 million ton capacity and in Germany the figure will be nearly the same.
Here is another challenge. In Japan, the steel industry has doubled its size during the last five years and quadrupled its size during the last ten years. We are getting a tremendous increase in challenge both in capacity and in technical standards within the industry. This is a thing in which our industry is certainly not falling behind compared with the rest of the world.
It is maintaining its competitive ability by these technical processes. The L.D.


process is one of those in which it has adapted its own techniques to great advantage and obtained high quality steel in the process. One could list the other processes, the Kaldo and the Roto processes, by which the industry is keeping itself highly competitive. It is time that we stopped arguing who is to control the industry. Most of us in this House have very clear ideas about it. The only people who seem to be in doubt are the Liberal Party.
I think that the essence today is to assist the industry to obtain its investment finance, to improve its technical qualities and to keep an edge on competition from abroad. I am quite sure that in that part of the industry which I know its competitive and technical quality is unquestionable and will rise to the challenge that lies ahead.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: It would be very tempting to follow the lion. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) into the wider fields into which he has ventured, but I have only a very few minutes and I came here tonight partly in order to say a kind and embarrassing word to the Government. I must confess that I was slightly warned off this by the latter part of the speech of the Economic Secretary, but even so I think that in the action which the Government took at the last moment over the takeover battle they deserve some credit. It was a good deed from a naughty Government, and when they do something of this kind I think that they should be congratulated.
The hon. Member who spoke for the Liberal Party and others in discussing this take-over battle seemed to suggest that it was half a dozen of one and six of the other, that it was just the normal kind of take-over battle and that no moral guilt attached to either side. When I suggested in an interruption that Stewarts and Lloyds were, after all, the aggressors in the battle—someone has to start a battle—we were told that Stewarts and Lloyds were behaving perfectly properly. This is not quite the view of the Economist, which is not a newspaper very friendly to those who support public ownership. The Economist has always been the great champion of private enter-

prise, but the verdict of the Economist on this particular battle was that it was the most reckless of the City's take-over battles. I do not think it is a very good thing that the steel industry of this country should be the victim of a reckless battle. The Economist goes on:
Stewarts and Lloyds certainly started something awkward, and now in offering 85s. appear to have tried to make R.T.B.'s pips squeak.
Those are not my words, they are the words of the Economist. I do not think it a very good way to run a great industry in this country to want to try to make the pips squeak.
In fact, Stewarts and Lloyds knew very well what it was doing; it was raping Richard Thomas and Baldwins. It was not aggression, it was attempted rape. It knew that and the Government appreciated it, and I congratulate the Government on being realistic. What started this latest war was a desire to inflict serious injury on Richard Thomas and Baldwins. Partly, no doubt, Stewarts and Lloyds may have had commercial reasons for doing so. But there might have been other motives. There has been a vendetta against Richard Thomas and Baldwins. Hon. Members opposite, including the hon. Member for Walsall. South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid), who has just entered the Chamber, are pursuing a vendetta against Richard Thomas and Baldwins. Almost every hon. Member opposite, with the exception of the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, has indicated as his main interest the continuance of their vendetta against Richard Thomas and Baldwins. They are, of course, tied to Stewarts and Lloyds.
The hon. Member for Kidderminister (Sir G. Nabarro) was bashful for the first time, I suppose, in his political career when he did not indicate at the beginning of his speech that he was a shareholder in Stewarts and Lloyds. But I think it is pretty disreputable that all the questions, or the main part of the questions, on this matter have come from those who were put up to it by Stewarts and Lloyds. Han. Members do not have to take my word for it. The Economist thought that Stewarts and Lloyds ought to be rebuffed, and so did the Government. What happened then? Richard Thomas and Baldwins was engaged in defending itself, and here again this is what the Economist had to say:
R.T.B. in public ownership is behaving as a commercial enterprise must be expected to


behave in the protection of its own commercial interests.
My complaint is that Richard Thomas and Baldwins should ever have been put into the position of having to defend itself.
Before Parliament rose for the Christmas Recess my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. I. Davies) raised the question because the Gowerton Works in his constituency were affected. Hon. Members on this side pressed the matter, and at that time the Government could not tell us what they proposed to do. The simplest thing would have been for the Government to appeal to Stewarts and Lloyds to call it off as we asked. That might have saved the country a lot of money. Even so, the Government did come forward at the end and support Richard Thomas and Baldwins in its action.
I am sorry that the Financial Secretary has departed from the Chamber. He had some controversy with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), and it may be that that is the reason why he has left. It was clear that the hon. Gentleman could not answer the questions put by my hon. Friend. There is not the slightest doubt whatever that the Government and the taxpayers have lost roughly £5 million on the deal.
The fact is, of course, that Whitehead should never have been denationalised. Indeed, at the time of the passing of the 1953 Act or later there was a proposal made that when R.T.B. was left nationalised Whitehead should be left as well. It was such an obvious thing to do. But the Government insisted on going ahead and selling off Whitehead. I am biased in favour of public ownership. But everyone knows that the Economist is not biased in favour of public ownership, and it stated:
Technically R.T.B. and Whitehead are on the same side of the fence. Legally nationalisation divided them, and it almost certainly should not.
Of course that is the situation. On any technical grounds Whitehead and R.T.B. should never have been severed from their relationship as they were when one was denationalised and the other was not. So when the Government took this action they did so in defiance of technical needs. They acted at the behest of their own

doctrinaire ideas. However, even though they committed this act originally which caused the trouble, the Government did rescue the situation at the cost of a considerable amount to the taxpayer. The position of the Government and the Minister of Power reminds me of the story in Victor Hugo's novel where the sailor let loose a battering ram against the ship and almost caused a shipwreck. Then at the last moment and by great energy he managed to rescue the situation. What happened to that sailor was that he was first decorated and then shot. That is the prescription I suggest for the Government.
The hon. Member for Kidderminster——

Hon. Members: Where is he?

Sir G. Nabarro: I am here——

Mr. Foot: —suggested that there was some equivocation on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris). Of course there was no equivocation whatsoever. The only person who has equivocated in this debate is the hon. Member for Kidderminster who refused, or failed, to declare his interest at the beginning of his speech. We may also say this for the hon. Member; he has shown that he has cold feet in this debate. He used to be the big, brave warrior fighting for R.T.B. to be denationalised and battering the Government over the head because they would not do it. The Government, however, did not have the frankness or common courtesy to tell R.T.B. what they told hon. Members at a secret meeting in the House of Commons.

Sir G. Nabarro: rose—

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Why should an hon. Member who spoke for thirty-six minutes in the debate and then left the Chamber almost immediately seek to interrupt other hon. Members?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): That is not a point of order, but I hope there will be fewer interruptions because I wish to get in several other speakers.

Sir G. Nabarro: I want to make perfectly clear that I cannot declare an interest in a matter in a question——

Mr. Foot: I am not giving way to the hon. Member on that point——

Sir G. Nabarro: rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member who has the Floor does not give way, another hon. Member cannot interrupt.

Mr. Foot: If the hon. Member for Kidderminster wanted to declare his shareholdings he should have done so at the beginning of his speech.
The hon. Member has run away on another matter. He has been pressing the Government to say that they must denationalise R.T.B. Now he is in a much weaker position to do so. He says that the Government do not have to do it all at one time but they can take little bits and sell them off. That is how some hon. Members opposite care for the industry. Already we have the example before us of how technically it was most unwise to sever the relation between Whitehead and R.T.B. Now the hon. Member has so much interest in the working of the industry that he, with his technical knowledge of these matters, recommends the Government to lop off little bits here and there and sell them as job lots. Of course, he has a financial interest in these matters.
The hon. Member tried to make some capital by saying that my hon. Friend who introduced this Motion had something to disguise about his views on public ownership. He has nothing at all to disguise, neither he nor any of my hon. Friends. It has been made quite plain at the time of the last General Election and repeated afterwards. Everything that has happened in this jungle struggle of the last few weeks and months confirms what we said, that if we want to secure a proper technical arrangement of the industry, finance has to be put into second place. Technique has to be put in the first place.
If we are to solve the problems of the steel industry we have to take command of the economy as a whole, but if we are to contribute to that economy we must lay a firm basis in a publicly-owned industry. That remains one of the main issues to be decided by the electorate at the coming General Election.

9.9 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I quite understand why the Government found it necessary to make two speeches from the Front Bench this evening, because we know that in the past my lion. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) has felt very strongly about the question of R.T.B. But I think it a bit unfortunate that on a private Members' night so much of the time should have been monopolised by Front Bench speakers.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. J. Morris) on his luck in the Ballot, but I must say that he started to fish in rather troubled waters when he decided to raise the subject of the steel industry. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) accused hon. Members on this side of the House of carrying out a vendetta against R.T.B. I wonder whether hon. Members opposite are not carrying out a vendetta against Stewarts and Lloyds.
Having listened to the debate, I feel that the whole of the argument is a bit arid and sterile. So often in steel debates, particularly that in July, hon. Members have tried to make out that in some way nationalisation of the steel industry would have affected its present position in respect of output and orders, and I should like to address myself to that proposition for a few minutes. The hon. Member reaffirmed his belief in nationalisation, as did the whole of the Labour Party. They seem to think that they are alone in sympathising with workers in the steel industry who are on short time or redundancy, and I should like to repudiate that, because I share in that sympathy just as much as they do.
I do not believe for one moment that any organisation, administration or ownership, which they might have produced for the steel industry would in any way have altered the situation of that industry at present. What contribution can nationalisation make to the position? Do hon. Members opposite believe that if they owned the shares, or the taxpayer owned them, rather than private individuals, there would have been a bigger demand far steel and more orders and more work in the industry? I do not think that that can be held to be true.


The industry was in private hands and then in public hands, and then mainly in private hands again, and no one can say that this affects the demand for steel.
As hon. Members well know, whether the industry is nationalised or not, prices in the steel industry are controlled almost entirely by the Iron and Steel Board, which is an instrument of the Government. Whether prices are too high or too low is a point into which I do not wish to enter in this debate, but surely a different organisation of the industry could in no sense have affected the demand for steel.
Next, we come to the question of investment and capacity in the steel industry. Again, it was the Iron and Steel Board which persuaded the Government to put £100 million in R.T.B. and Colvilles for making strip. I do not know which is the cart and which is the horse—whether it is the firms or the Board—but we have been persuaded to invest £1,500 million in the private steel companies to increase capacity. The end result of all this has been that we now have a capacity approaching 28½ million tons a year. As hon. Members have said, in 1960 we had 26 million tons ordered, in 1961 it was 23 million tons, and in 1962 it was 20½ million tons.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Ridley: Surely this demonstrates beyond any doubt the absolute fallibility and futility of central planning of an industry's capacity.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Ridley: Thus we are running at about 8 million tons under the capacity which hon. Members opposite in their wisdom had backed in backing the planning of the Iron and Steel Board. Yet they say that planning and a further strengthening of the organisation of the industry is the only way to secure a recovery. I do not know whether there have been mistakes in the past.

Mr. Winterbottom: rose—

Mr. Ridley: Surely it is obvious that here is a prime example of where planning on a grand scale has failed to get the answer right.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Ridley: I think that the truth is that 1960 was a boom year in our country with boom effects in the steel industry. What has happened since then is that demand has settled back to a normal pattern and we are getting a much more normal type of demand.

Hon. Members: Nonsense.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Listening to the debate the other day on an Allocation of Time Motion, I heard a happy slip by an hon. Member who referred to a speech in which 14 Members had taken part. I think that we had better get on.

Mr. Ridley: I have not time to say all I would like to say. This proves that we have had a large degree of nationalisation, in the sense that control of prices, investment and capacity has been in semipublic hands. It proves that the whole debate about nationalisation of steel is becoming sterile and pointless. Whether the ownership is private or public does not really affect the demand for steel. If hon. Members opposite would direct themselves to keeping the economy competitive and to looking for markets abroad to sell steel and steel products, they would do a much greater service to the steel industry than by repeating their parrot cry of nationalisation at any price. I cannot think how this constant changing backward and forward from private to public enterprise has escaped "That Was The Week That Was".

Mr. Bence: Who did it?

Mr. Ridley: I wonder whether we could not try to drop the steel industry out of our current political battles. It is high time that we tried to find a compromise in this matter.
To get reflation going would not cure the basic troubles of the steel industry. If the economy were to take up the slack, we might achieve 2 or 3 per cent. extra consumption of steel, but we are looking for an increased consumption of 30 or 40 per cent. To ask for a boom in consumer goods industries would not have the desired effect. There has been a serious error in the calculation of capacity which has been necessary, in which both the private side of the industry and the public control apparatus have shared.
Now we must concentrate on keeping the price of steel and the price of all our exports competitive, so that we can as the years pass sell more. In this respect probably the future of the industry rests much more on the co-operation which right hon. and hon. Members opposite will give in forming an incomes' policy than in the arid and sterile argument of whether there should be public or private ownership.

9.18 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Lee: The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) suggested that the alternative to a publicly-owned steel industry was competitive private enterprise within the industry. No such animal has existed in steel for many years, nor have the Government the slightest intention of trying to bring competition back to the industry. It is their objective to create, instead of a public monopoly, a private monopoly.
For our part, as these are the alternatives with which the country is now faced, we put our faith in a public monopoly, properly controlled by the Government or by the vehicles of control they would create, functioning in the public interest and not in the interest of the shareholders. This, I should have thought, is the basis of the discussion which we are now having. If we may rightly judge from the cacophony we have had over last weekend of Ministers telling the country that the age of "stop-go" economics has gone and that they are new converts to planning, the first thing they would see is the need to plan that which has been described on both sides of the House as one of the major industries in the nation. It is the genesis of most of our other manufacturing industries. About 40 per cent. of our exports have a steel content.
We have been told so often that we must try to remain competitive. There cannot be any argument that because of the denationalisation of steel the price of British steel has increased more than the average of manufactured goods in Britain. It has, therefore, played its part in making it impossible to succeed in the export drive which the Government are supposed to have embarked upon. The main point we make is that if on both sides of the House we are

agreed on the need for planning, the vehicles for planning should be set up, but the Government refuse to do just that.
I submit that there is not in connection with the steel industry, or indeed industrially at all in this country, any authority which can ensure that plans made by the Government will be carried out. There is no way in which either investment or the rate of investment in an industry, as desired by the Government, can be guaranteed. Surely, therefore, this debate is not merely about the silly old nonsense that we heard from the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro), during the period when he forgot to declare his financial interest. It is not an argument about nationalisation versus competitive private enterprise. It is, for us, a challenge to the Government to show that they are now accepting the basis of planning by creating the planning instruments which are necessary to do the job.
I believe that over the last few years we have seen what I have described as a potential instrument dissipated and turned into loot for private speculators. This has been accompanied by a rundown of the use of steel by consuming industry. No matter what the capacity, when nationalisation came to the steel industry we had full employment, but since denationalisation we have never had it. When we had public ownership we had a Government who believed in an expanding economy. Denationalisation has been accompanied by the presence of a Government who never believed in an expanding economy. We have, therefore, had the restrictions and contractions which have been the history of the steel industry during the past few years.
The Government themselves only recently sought powers in the House to increase investment in the public sector. Why? They said, in effect, "The economy is in great trouble. We want to get Britain moving again and, therefore, we take the vehicle which is at our disposal—the public sector—and we increase investment in it." Had other industries in the public sector been capable of being used as vehicles for getting a profit for private business they would not have been in the public sector anyway. How, therefore, can the Government have a replanned economy? The fact that steel alone of these great industries could be put back to private backing has robbed


the Government of a great planning instrument which should now be used in the interests of the nation as a whole.
In a debate some time ago we on this side of the House queried the power of the Iron and Steel Board. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury was quite wrong in saying that we accepted the Board as being the controlling instrument of the steel industry. We said precisely the opposite. We said that it had no real power at all to control the steel industry. I remember that in the course of the debate on Richard Thomas and Baldwins, on 27th June, 1960, I argued that there was no effective control of steel. The Minister of Power said:
The Government believed that there was absolutely no reason why public supervision should depend on public ownership. In fact, they believed that the question of ownership had nothing to do with the effectiveness of public supervision which could be equally effective, if not more effective, under conditions of private enterprise. The Government therefore set up the Iron and Steel Board, which had the minimum powers necessary for the balanced development of the industry and to try to avoid waste of national resources. It is quite correct, as the hon. Member for Newton pointed out, that it was always our intention that the real power of the Iron and Steel Board would depend not on its ability to give orders, but its ability to lead and persuade in the industry.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th June, 1960; Vol. 625, c. 980–1.]
We have just had discussed the affair of the Whitehead take-over. The ethics of the thing on all sides have been deplorable. The Financial Secretary said that the Government were compelled to back Richard Thomas and Baldwins because, unless they did so, Richard Thomas and Baldwins would have become a less lucrative selling organisation as far as the Government were concerned.
I put this question to the Parliamentary Secretary: if the Iron and Steel Board has the authority within the industry which the Minister told us it has, why did it allow this take-over nonsense to go on? Why did it not step in and determine what was in the national interest? Why did not it say, just as the hon. Gentleman said tonight, that Richard Thomas and Baldwins would be gravely weakened if Whitehead went to Stewarts and Lloyds? We have heard that it would have cost about £10 million per annum to Richard Thomas and Baldwins and that White-

head purchased 89 per cent. of its total requirements from Richard Thomas and Baldwins.
Therefore, I should like the hon. Gentleman to give us an answer on this. Is it the case that the Iron and Steel Board has no authority whatever over the steel industry and, therefore, could not intervene in any way to prevent what would have been a major catastrophe, on the Financial Secretary's showing, if Stewarts and Lloyds had been able to take over Whitehead? I have heard some of my hon. Friends give a lot of credit to the Government for stepping in and doing what they did, but could they have allowed some kind of differentiation between the take-over bid by a nationalised industry and a bid by a private industry?
We have seen the news today about Guest. Keen and Nettlefolds making a twin bid involving well over £10 million in cash and shares for Ambrose Shardlow and Co. Ltd., of Sheffield, and Smith's Stamping Works, at Coventry. According to The Times, the Ambrose Shardlow take-over involves the transfer of 49 per cent. of the capital to the United Steel Company if and when Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds is successful in taking it over.
Could the Government—indeed, dare they—have done other than they did in this case without making it essential that the take-over bids which I have described be vetoed by private companies? I believe that they were forced into this position not only by their feelings of tenderness for Richard Thomas and Baldwins, but because they knew that throughout the steel industry, and, indeed throughout most sections of big industry in Britain, there is no alternative to the take-over bidder, to the elimination of competitive private enterprise or to the creation of public monopoly in its place.

Sir G. Nabarro: Oh.

Mr. Lee: The hon. Gentleman is still growling from behind the bushes there, but I do not think that he has come out of this debate very well and I advise him to be quiet for the rest of it.
We know that when it was essential for an enlargement of steel production the Government had to turn to the one


nationally-owned section of the industry—Richard Thomas and Baldwins. Had they not had R.T.B. to do the enlarging job to get the new strip mill, £120 million of public money would have had to be put into private enterprise instead of the mere £50 million that went into Colvilles. I wonder why the hon. Member for Kidderminster and the rest of the "fuel furies" did not scream their heads off about the enlargement of public enterprise when recently the Government deliberately enlarged public enterprise. There was no real alternative to the action that the Government then took.
I understand that during the present year a further 2½ million tons of new capacity will be created in the steel industry. As far as one sees the position in 1963, there will be little prospect of any sufficient increase in demand to meet the 2½ million tons of extra capacity which is now being created.
What do the Government propose to do about this? We on this side have for long argued the need of a more closely planned economy. We have not argued for public ownership, either in steel or in any other industry, for reasons of sheer dogma. We have argued it because it is an essential development in any planned society. Even in the United States, far more public money is being put into industry than in any other nation outside the Soviet Union. Only the British Tories do not know what century this is.
When we hear rather stupid arguments from the hon. Member for Kidderminster that all this is based on dogma, the fact is that even in the death throes of the present Government the Tory Party should realise that unless it tries at least to get abreast of the 1960s the state of the economy will continue to go down.
Hon. Members opposite are belatedly attempting to use the distribution of industry policy which they neglected for so many years. I do not believe that the use of that policy will of itself be sufficiently deep or wide to eliminate unemployment and to get the country growing in the way that is needed. There is now the need of development of new industry which will require enormously increased capacity in the steel industry. We must now look to the

new industries of the second half of this century rather than merely spread throughout the country industries many of which are simply the ghosts of the first Industrial Revolution.
In what way can the Government possibly plan the demand for the increased capacity of the steel industry unless they put themselves in a position where they can hold the authority to decide the capacity of the industry and hold the planning powers to ensure that new industry is created? Surely this is the economic problem of this day and age. I do not believe that the Government have the capacity to do what is necessary.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) spoke of what he called the two sections of the world. How can it possibly be that in the Western, highly industrialised countries, we see the great tragedy of unused steel capacity, Whilst throughout the rest of the world there is a crying need for the products which our steel industry could produce?
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition mentioned the other day that in some of our towns we are faced with the closing down of railway workshops. Is there really no demand in other parts of the world for the products of those workshops? Is it the case that we are an insular race, living on a high standard of living, but whose Government are incapable in their planning of seeing beyond these shores at all? When we see tonight the spectacle of this great industry working at 65 or 67 per cent. of its capacity, producing over 2½ million tons capacity this year which will not be used, surely the case for planningplanning—is proven.
The hon. Gentleman had better make up his mind where he stands on this. He really had better make up his mind.

Sir G. Nabarro: Which hon. Gentleman?

Mr. Lee: The hon. Member for Kidderminster as well, if he likes.
The hon. Gentleman really ought to keep abreast with his Government.

Mr. Proudfoot: Has the hon. Member ever sold anything in his life?

Mr. Lee: When the Prime Minister declared that the Tories had become


planners we really did expect that the nonentities in his party and Government would move with him. If we really are to have the hon. Gentleman opposite telling us that the idea of planning is not acceptable to Toryism we must decide, between him and his Prime Minister, who speaks for the Tories.

Mr. Proudfoot: Would the hon. Gentleman tell us how he plans sales? Has he ever sold anything in his life?

Mr. E. G. Willis (Edinburgh, East): Has the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Proudfoot) ever made anything in his life?

Mr. Lee: If the hon. Member for Cleveland cannot make a better intervention than that I would advise him to remain seated.
I have been saying that there is a demand in Britain, where the Government have produced 815,000 unemployed people, who, if they are given the ability to work, will create the demand. I can assure the hon. Gentleman of that. We can create goods, and we should be creating markets for them, but upon this the Government have failed and failed lamentably.
I put it to the House that the Government themselves have completely failed in their efforts to denationalise the steel industry and have brought themselves into the dilemma which the Financial Secretary told us about over Richard Thomas and Baldwins and the damage which was threatened. In fact, a great industry, of which we have reason to be proud, is now in sheer chaos because of the anarchy created by denationalisation. It is not merely a question of dogma. It is a question of public ownership, meaning the ability to control this industry, and that is a condition, partly, of our ability to expand the economy itself.
If the Government and the Tory Party will not accept that, then I tell them they are not in favour of an expanding economy and of producing a planned economy.

9.38 p.m.

Mr. Peyton: The whole House owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) for having raised this very important subject. If I may say so without embarrassing him, he gave one of his

most eloquent speeches, which he started, of course, with a sprinkling—I suppose every one of us has to do it—of abuse of the party opposite.
Then he recalled one remark which had been made by Inv right hon. Friend in the last debate at the end of July, when my right hon. Friend said that some time would elapse before substantial improvement took place. I can only say to the House that my right hon. Friend was entirely justified in saying that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] What is the choice to be—some pretty gloss of words to try to paint over the hard facts, or to try to confront them, as my right hon. Friend did? In fact my right hon. Friend did then point out as he was perfectly right to do, that the state of this industry is inextricably linked with the economy. Nothing can alter that fact, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberavon was quite right in reminding the House of what my right hon. Friend had said.
He then went on to charge me, and he made an offer to me of a suit of sackcloth and ashes, which, I dare say, would fit me very well; but he made about me the kind of remark with which I should be happy to be charged again and again. Then the hon. Gentleman went on to something which I regard as very important indeed. He was almost alone in the debate in dealing with the all-important questions of costs and the competitive power of the steel industry. It would be my hope and ambition to avoid a lot of trite utterances about other people being efficient, but I think that the points he made are very important on shipping, ports and ore contracts. These are all points which relate very much to the costs and competitive ability of the industry. The industry is confronted, as it made clear in its evidence to the Rochdale Committee, with certain handicaps, such as in shipping heavy loads out of this country, and in being subjected to heavy costs.
With regard to the bringing in of ore, I want to quote a remark by Sir Harry Spencer, managing director of Richard Thomas and Baldwin, which was reported in the Metal Bulletin of 21st December last year:
Every shilling per ton on ore costs which we unnecessarily incur increases the costs of our finished steel by half a crown a ton, and on the costs we are called on to bear there could be plenty of savings.


That is a very important remark. As to whether Sir Harry's figures are entirely justified, he is an expert on the steel industry and should be listened to with a good deal of care.
I have some estimates that I would commend to the House about the difference it might make if we had in this country a fleet of ore carriers which could be described as being of modern size—always assuming that we have the ports in which to fit them. One of this country's terrible problems at the moment is that of the 15 or so ports regularly used for the import of iron ore, only the Tyne can accommodate a 35,000 ton ore carrier. It has been estimated that the saving which would result from using a ship of, say, 31,000 tons compared with a 9,000 ton vessel—which can get into Port Talbot, in the hon. Gentleman's constituency—would be 11s.-12s. per ton. If one doubles that to reach the resulting effect on the cost of pig-iron, it becomes an important factor for the industry.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was right in focussing the attention of the House on the all-important question of our ports and, arising from that, the size of the ships that we can use. This matter is very germane indeed to the competitive power of the industry, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for having raised the matter today. I would tell the House that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is considering urgently the important report of the Rochdale Committee and will in due course be making a statement on it.
If I might just answer one of the hon. Gentleman's points, he asked what sort of ships we had in our ore-carrying fleet. The answer is that we have 72 ships in the fleet, plus another two building. Of these ships, six only are over 17,500 tons, and 24 are under 10,000 tons. That represents a very considerable addition to the ore-carrying costs of the industry.
The hon. Gentleman then turned to more contentious questions. He said he fought the General Election on the question of public ownership, and I was happy to gather from the way he said it that it was his intention, and, indeed, the intention of the Labour Party, to fight the next General Election upon the same ground.

This is something which always surprises the Conservative Party but nevertheless is a source of great relief to us, and I would like to express on behalf of my hight hon. and hon. Friends their deep and sincere gratitude.
The hon. Gentleman then went on to say that it was a very sad thing that there should be an under-use of capacity in this country while the under-developed countries were short of steel which they could put to great use. But it would be beyond the capacity of the steel industry or this country as a whole to make a present of steel to anybody, whether they wanted it or not.
As the hon. Gentleman is probably aware, it is the Government's intention in suitable cases to give, by way of aid, materials which are wanted, but it would be a hopeless and absolutely wrong approach, and would completely undermine the purposes for which aid is given, if, by way of conferring a gift or some assistance, it was made a condition that the recipient country should accept what we insisted upon giving.
I come now to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro). He spoke with great brevity and with accustomed modesty and patience, and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) made a number of very noisy sedentary interruptions. But I must say that the hon. Gentleman should hit someone who has much better self defence than my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend is inclined, as one hon. Member remarked, towards diffidence. I want to call attention to his statement that if he were so clever as to be able to foretell demand for the product of any industry he would be able to make a fortune.
A great deal of this debate has proceeded on the assumption that some people possess this kind of wisdom. It is profoundly untrue. It is wrong to suggest that anyone, by force of planning, can introduce immense new capacity in the steel industry just at a time when demand is at a peak. Whether hon. Members opposite like it or not, the kind of expansion which took place recently in the industry had to be planned over years. They must face the fact that no one can be certain that new plant will come into operation just at the moment when demand is at its height.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster went on to draw the most attractive distinction between turning turtle politically and being a hypocrite. I do not intend to pursue this distinction, but I accept that turning turtle politically is at least a very nice, happy phrase and one which comes very well from his armoury.

Mr. Bence: rose—

Mr. Peyton: I have a lot to say.

Mr. Bence: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me? This is important.

Mr. Peyton: No.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) expressed on behalf of the Liberal Party his regret, which we fully share, that the Labour Party should still intend to renationalise the steel industry. He devoted most of his speech to the question of the R.T.B.-Whitehead issue, and I do not propose to follow him into that as it has already been fully dealt with by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary.
The hon. and learned Member for Brigg (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu) launched a savage attack on my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster. He then proceeded to turn his guns upon me. I was a little puzzled. He was very concerned to point out the conflict of interest which, he said, must exist between somebody who had been on the boards of both Richard Thomas & Baldwins and Whiteheads. Whether it is desirable or not, I have always been under the impression that the whole argument was that there was such an identity of interest between Richard Thomas & Baldwins and Whiteheads that it would be intolerable and not sensible for the two to be split.

Mr. Bence: When they were both still nationalised.

Mr. Peyton: I was referring to the argument put by the party opposite again and again and which has come to us from other Socialist sources.
The hon. and learned Member then said that it was high time that something was done about dumping. He said that in an Adjournment debate not very long ago. I remind him that so far the Government have received no formal application whatsoever, and he should know of the machinery which is available

to those who have grounds for complaint about dumping. No steel company has yet made any application for action by the Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) was concerned to welcome the way in which the industry is going in for new processes and developing other ideas, a welcome in which I share. He was even brave enough—and my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) carried on with this later—to say that it would be a good thing if the House of Commons were to argue more about the way in which the industry was run than by whom it was owned.
I do not intend to answer at length the speech of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot), to whom it is always a pleasure to listen. He was concerned again to discuss the question of Richard Thomas & Baldwins and Whiteheads. However, one phrase from his speech deserves to go down in the annals of Parliamentary debates. I wrote it down at the time. He said that it was not aggression, it was attempted rape. My understanding of the word "rape" has been that it is not very far distinguished from aggression.
The hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) complained that there was no way in which the rate of investment, or investment at all, in a particular industry could be guaranteed. That is profoundly untrue. The hon. Member should know by now that it is quite easy for the Government—indeed, it is constantly done—to direct investment in all the nationalised industries, and into the steel industry under private ownership. The hon. Member persistently ignores the fact of the enormous investment in the steel industry which has gone on in the two instances he mentioned. He does not accept the consequences, which are that huge sums of public money have been invested both in Richard Thomas & Baldwins and in Colvilles. The hon. Gentleman does his case no good when he ignores matters of that importance.
The hon. Gentleman ignored also the fact that the capacity of the steel industry over these years has increased to 30 million tons, the figure it will reach this year. This is not, surely, the result of a long period of restriction on growth? When,


in the not very distant future, this capacity proves itself entirely warranted, I hope that those who now pretend to lament the excess capacity will not be the first to complain of shortage.
The hon. Gentleman completed his denunciation of the Government by saying that we on this side of the House——

Mr. Mendelson: rose—

Mr. Peyton: I shall not give way. The hon. Gentleman——

Mr. Mendelson: On a point of order. Is it not completely unjustifiable and out of order to make an assertion which affects every Member representing a steel constituency without providing an opportunity for correction?

Mr. Speaker: I had hoped that we had got rid of points of order that were not points of order.

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman ended his denunciation of the Government by saying that we had failed in our efforts to denationalise the industry. It is a very strange failure. I think that the whole of this side of the House is disappointed that the operation is not complete because we regard it as necessary. It is very strange to say that we have failed to denationalise when we have denationalised the whole industry except for this one admittedly large company.
Let me come for a moment to the Motion before the House. It is, as one of my hon. Friends said, a very thinly concealed demand for renationalisation of the industry. The camouflage is indeed thin, and I can only say that from our point of view the Motion explains nothing and offers nothing save some worn out

advice and one very unwelcome crumb of praise which we are not at all anxious to pick up.

I cannot help feeling that when the debate is over some hon. Gentlemen opposite will feel a regret that they have aired once again their naïve enthusiasm for this old, worn out dogma of nationalisation which is going to solve nothing and answer no problems.

Mr. Callaghan: Why did the Government nationalise the industry?

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman, who has intervened constantly, has already had this explained to him. He has intervened frequently in this debate from his usual sedentary position. The first time he did it, he did so without bothering to inquire whether his hon. Friend had been consulted about an arrangement which was made for his benefit.

Mr. Callaghan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?

Mr. Peyton: No. I end by saying that we are delighted to have the round and repeated assurance from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite that they are determined once again to fight an election on this issue of nationalisation. I can only say how greatly and warmly——

Mr. Callaghan: The Government are the nationalisers.

Mr. Peyton: —we welcome this enthusiasm, and I would like to take this opportunity of foretelling that, once again, this old-fashioned idea will prove to be a millstone round their necks.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 144, Noes 197.

Division No. 55.
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Alnsley, William
Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Dempsey, James


Allaun, Frank (Balford, E.)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Driberg, Tom


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John


Awbery, Stan (Bristol Central)
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Ede, Rt. Hon. C.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Callaghan, James
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)


Baird, John
Castle, Mrs. Barbara
Edwards, Walter (Stepney)


Barnett, Guy
Cliffe, Michael
Evans, Albert


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Collick, Percy
Finch, Harold


Bence, Cyril
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)


Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Galpern, Sir Myer


Blackburn, F.
Crossman, R. H. S.
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.


Blyton, William
Dalyell, Tarn
Gourlay, Harry


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Darling, George
Grey, Charles


Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W.(Lelcs, S.W.)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)


Boyden, James
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Gunter, Ray


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Delargy, Hugh
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)




Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Manuel, Archie
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Hannan, William
Marsh, Richard
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)


Harper, Joseph
Mason, Roy
Small, William


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Mendelson, J. J.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Hayman, F. H.
Millan, Bruce
Spriggs, Leslie


Healey, Denis
Milne, Edward
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)
Mitchison, G. R.
Stonehouse, John


Herbison, Miss Margaret
Moody, A, S.
Stones, William


Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Morris, John
Swingler, Stephen


Hilton, A. V.
Mulley, Frederick
Taverne, D.


Holman, Percy
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Houghton, Douglas
Oram, A. E.
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)
Oswald, Thomas
Thornton, Ernest


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Owen, Will
Wainwright, Edwin


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Padley, W. E.
Warbey, William


Hunter, A. E.
Paget, R. T.
Weitzman, David


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Pargiter, G. A.
Whitiock, William


Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Parkin, B. T.
Wigg, George


Jay, Rt. Hon, Douglas
Pavitt, Laurence
Wiikins, W. A.


Jeger, George
Peart, Frederick



Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Pentland, Norman
Willey, Frederick


Jones. Rt. Hn. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Williams, W, R. (Openshaw)


Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Popplewell, Ernest
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


King, Dr. Horace
Prentice, R. E.
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Ledger, Ron
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Probert, Arthur
Woof, Robert


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Wyatt, Woodrow


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Reid, William
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Rhodes, H.
Zilliacus, K.


Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)



Manon, Dr. J. Dickson
Robertson, John (Paisley)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


MacDermot, Niall
ROSS, William
Mr. E. L. Mallalieu and


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Mr. Winterbottom.


McLeavy, Frank
Skeffington, Arthur





NOES


Altken, W. T.
Eden, John
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey


A Mason, James
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Elliott, R. W. (Nwcastle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.


Atkins, Humphrey
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Kirk, Peter


Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)
Errington, Sir Eric
Lambton, Viscount


Balniel, Lord
Farr, John
Lancaster, Col. C. G.


Barber, Anthony
Finlay, Graeme
Leburn, Gilmour


Barlow, Sir John
Fisher, Nigel
Litchfield, Capt. John


Barter, John
Foster, John
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Longden, Gilbert


Berkeley, Humphry
Freeth, Denzil
Loveys, Walter H.


Bitten, John
Gammans, Lady
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Biggs-Davison, John
Gibson-Watt, David
MacArthur, Ian


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk Central)
McLaren, Martin


Bishop, F. P.
Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)


Black, Sir Cyril
Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)


Bourne-Arton, A.
Goodhew, Victor
Macpherson, Rt. Hn. Niall (Dumfries)


Box, Donald
Cough, Frederick
Maitland, Sir John


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John
Grant-Ferris, R.
Markham, Major Sir Frank


Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward
Gresham Cooke, R.
Marshall, Douglas


Braine, Bernard
Gurden, Harold
Marten, Neil


Brooman-White, R.
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Hare, Rt. Hon. John
Mawby, Ray


Bryan, Paul
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.


Buck, Antony
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vers (Macclesf'd)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Bullard, Denys
Hay, John
Mills, Stratton


Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Miscampbell, Norman


Burden, F. A.
Hendry, Forbes
Montgomery, Fergus


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


Campbell, Rt. Hn. Sir D.(Belfast, S.)
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Morgan, William


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Hirst, Geoffrey
Morrison, John


Carr, Compton (Barons Court)
Hobson, Sir John
Neave, Airey


Chataway, Christopher
Hocking, Philip N.
Noble, Rt. Hon. Michael


Chichester-Clark, R.
Holt, Arthur
Nugent, Rt. Hon Sir Richard


Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Hopkins, Alan
Orr-Ewing, C. Ian


Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Hornby, R. P.
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)


Cooke, Robert
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Cooper, A. E.
Hughes Hailett, Vice-Admiral John
Page, John (Harrow, West)


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Hughes-Young, Michael
Partridge, E.


Costain, A. P.
Hulbert, Sir Norman
Peel, John


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Percival, Ian


Crawley, Aidan
Iremonger, T. L.
Peyton, John


Curran, Charles
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth


Dalkeith, Earl of
James, David
Pitman, Sir James


Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Pitt, Dame Edith


Doughty, Charles
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Pott, Percivall







Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch
Smyth Rt. Hon. Brig. Sir John
Wade, Donald


Prior, J. M. L.
Stevens, Geoffrey
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek


Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Webster, David


Proudfoot, Wilfred
Storey, Sir Samuel
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Pym, Francis
Studholme, Sir Henry
Whitelaw, William


Quennell, Miss J. M.
Summers, Sir Spencer
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Rawlinson, Sir Peter
Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Rodmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin
Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Ridley, Hon. Nicholas
Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Ridsdale, Julian
Teeling, Sir William
Wise, A. R.


Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)
Temple, John M.
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard


Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)
Thomas, Peter (Conway)
Woodhouse, C. M.


Russell, Ronald
Thompson, Sir Kenneth (Walton)
Wootlam, John


St. Ciair, M.
Thorpe, Jeremy
Worsiey, Marcus


Scott-Hopkins, James
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Cordon
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Sharpies, Richard
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.



Shepherd, William
van Straubenzee, W. R.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Skeet, T. H. H.
Vane, W. M. F.
Sir Gerald Nabarro and


Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on the Motion relating to Parliamentary Elections exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (CANDIDATES)

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Iain Macleod: Just before seven o'clock I was speaking to the Motion to appoint, in accordance with the advice of a Select Committee, an advisory committee to examine the problem of candidates from the Armed Forces at parliamentary elections. At the last count 496 papers were asked for from Rotherham and 175 from Colne Valley. The House came to the conclusion in December that this was likely to bring Parliament into disrepute and that the matter should be referred to a Select Committee. We now have the first Report of that Committee before us and it is to that Report that the Motion refers.
The first sentence of the Report makes clear in the words of the Committee that this subject is
a great deal more complex than might appear at first sight.
Although there will be a subsequent Report, and perhaps more than one, we have for the moment this interim Report. Frankly, I think it probable, although the Select Committee has not committed itself finally to this view, that only in legislation will the final result be achieved in this matter, because it is the same problem that has been worrying hon. Members on both sides of the House and which has made the Government so reluctant to act.
It is the desire to ensure that everyone, however "off-beat"—if I may put it in that way—their views may appear to be, should have the opportunity to put those views before the electorate and so seek election to this hon. House. We are all conscious that many views which have been expressed in the past, and which appeared at the time to be wildly out of tune, have later appeared to be popular and even orthodox.
It is the problem of the genuine candidate that concerns us at present. It is this problem that the House decided to refer to the Select Committee. We now have its first Report, which the Government are prepared to accept and to recommend the House to adopt. If the Motion is passed, the Services will promulgate, as a matter of urgency, the new procedures envisaged in paragraph 10 of the Report.
I wish to spell out a point which might occur to hon. Members in relation to paragraphs 10 and 11. Let me make quite clear that the procedure described will apply to officers in exactly the same way as to other ranks. They will be treated alike and we agree with the recommendation of the Select Committee that those applicants from the ranks who satisfy the advisory committee and are approved by the Minister should not have to pay for their discharge.
The only other point I make reference to is that of the names of those who might serve. To quote from the Report in paragraph 9:
Your Committee have no doubt that it would be possible to choose persons whose independence and judgment would command general assent. One or more former members of this House who have retired from active political life might well be included. The chairman of the committee, and of any group


into which they might divide, should have legal experience.
We accept that and have proceeded on that basis.
For the moment we have invited three persons, a chairman and two others, to form this committee. If there are sufficient applications it might be necessary to extend this perhaps to the seven envisaged by the Select Committee. We are fortunate that Mr. David Karmel, Q.C., who is known to many hon. Members, has accepted the suggestion that he should be chairman. He has been Recorder of Wigan since 1952. He has had distinguished war service and is a member of the General Council of the Bar.
Mr. Karmel is also—although I hope that this particular qualification will not be necessary—a steward of the British Boxing Board of Control. As I know very well from my experience as Minister of Labour, as a member of the Industrial Court and the Industrial Disputes Tribunal and chairman of a number of committees of investigation he has given splendid service. I do not think that we could find anyone who more aptly fulfilled the requirements which the Select Committee suggested.
Of former Members of this House invited we have invited two, both of whom have accepted, "Jim" Hutchison—Sir

James Hutchison, I suppose I should say, to use his more formal title—and Mr. Kenneth Younger. Both of them have had experience in the Services. Both of them have recently been Members of the House of Commons and are held in high regard by the whole House of Commons.
It so happens, also, that both have had service as Ministers in two of the Departments which are closely concerned, Sir James Hutchison as Under-Secretary of State for War and Mr. Kenneth Younger, first as Under-Secretary and then as Minister of State at the Home Office. I believe that these three appointments fulfil entirely the suggestion which was put to us by the Select Committee, namely, that we should choose persons
whose independence and judgment would command general assent".
This, beyond argument, is a difficult problem, but I believe that the House, first, in referring this matter to a Select Committee, was wise, and, secondly, that the Select Committee in recommending these initial steps in its first Report, whatever may be recommended for legislation in future, has taken the right immediate steps. I, therefore, express my gratitude to the members of the Select Committee and invite the House to approve the Motion.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. Tom Drïberg: We shall all agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House in expressing our gratitude to the Select Committee, who have been meeting no doubt on a number of occasions during the Christmas Recess and who have opened up what has evidently turned out to be a rather more complex constitutional problem than some of us supposed when the matter first arose.
It will be within the recollection of hon. Members that on 18th December, a few days before the House adjourned for the Christmas Recess, the Home Secretary made a long statement, which I have been recently re-reading. I am bound to say that the language in that statement was so tentative that it was very difficult to realise that the Home Secretary was not dealing with some more or less theoretical or hypothetical proposal but was actually announcing something which would take effect in the Services from that very day. He used the conditional tense throughout—
If we were to do this. … In the circumstances the Government propose that we deal with this difficult problem as follows. … For the immediate future we would adopt …
It was not, "We will as from today ask the Services to follow this or that procedure".
It was perhaps just a little difficult for the House to realise precisely what the right hon. Gentleman was indicating. However, re-reading his statement and his answers to supplementary questions arising from it, I find repeated one statement with which I personally agree very strongly, though it reads rather strangely now in the light of the Report of the Select Committee, of which the Home Secretary himself was Chairman. The Home Secretary said:
I do not think that any Service Department or I or anybody else could seek to discriminate between the genuineness of the motives of one would-be candidate and another.
Further down the same column I read:
As far as I can see, it is quite impossible to distinguish between the genuineness of one applicant and another …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th December, 1962; Vol. 669, c. 1087–9.]
I agree with that. I agree with the Home Secretary, although I must admit

that he has now had second thoughts on examining the problem more closely, since we take it that this Report of the Select Committee is unanimous. But I agree with what he said on 18th December—it is impossible to distinguish between the genuineness of one would-be candidate and another.
I think that the Leader of the House himself slightly shied off the fact that if we pass this Motion we are introducing a new and—I personally think—a very dangerous principle into our Parliamentary and electoral arrangements. I think 'that he shied off the realisation of that by using the words about this Advisory Committee that they are to be appointed to "examine the problem". They are not. The Select Committee examined the problem. The seven wise men, as I have no doubt, in accordance with the horrible jargon which is used, they will be called, are not going to examine the problem. That has been done. They are going to vet bona fides. They are going to try to do what the Home Secretary said on 18th December it was absolutely impossible to do. I do suggest that this is a rather dangerous new principle to introduce. Incidentally, the temporary arrangements which the Home Secretary introduced in this rather oblique way and which have been operating ever since 18th December did, as it were, reintroduce a sort of property qualification, since they limited discharges from the Services for this purpose to discharge by purchase.
This new principle of the vetting of candidates is surely a very strange one. Where will it stop? Why is it fair to vet the bona fides of Service men and not of civilians? The particular difficulty which has led to this expedient is the rush of applications for nomination forms for by-elections, particularly at Rotherham and Colne Valley. We have been told already—we have been told by the Select Committee and by Ministers answering Questions in the House—that Service applications are only a very small fraction of the total number of applications which have been received by the returning officers in those two constituencies. The footnote on page 2 of the Select Committee's Report says this:
It is clear … that the total number of applications to the three Service Departments


for release to contest an election has been, in fact, only a fraction of the total number of applications to returning officers for nomination papers".
Perhaps I may say in parentheses that it may turn out to be true, when nomination day comes in these two by-elections, that the whole matter has been very much exaggerated and that there has been a rather unnecessary panic about it, because the Town Clerk of Rotherham on 21st December, while announcing that there were indeed nearly 500 possible nominations, also said that he was—
now getting a large number of letters from cranks and people who just want some nomination papers to show their friends in the local. …
He also confirmed that Service applications were fewer than half the total, though lie did not know exactly how many they were.
I do not know whether the Government are next going to propose a panel of seven wise men to vet the bona fides of civilian "cranks", nor how they are going to define them, nor how they are going to vet their bona fides. Or are they going to proceed next to the proposal that is sometimes made by people who do not understand very much about Parliament—that here should be intelligence tests or general knowledge tests or tests in economics, politics, and so on, for people who want to stand for Parliament?
The more this proposal is examined the more one sees how inept and undemocratic it is, because despite all the good will that I am sure these distinguished people whom the Leader of the House has named will bring to the task, how on earth will they discern the bona fides of any would-be candidate? If somebody appears before them who is perhaps rather ignorant and inarticulate, it does not mean he is not sincere. It does not mean he has not got bona fides. It will be jolly difficult for them. What sort of questions are they going to ask—"How long have you been interested in politics?" If the candidate is a young man, he probably has to say, "Not for very long". They then at once become suspicious. They may think that he is just trying it on for the purpose of using this loophole. How on earth are they going to test the matter? One can foresee that if this catches on, if there are

more applications, and if the seven wise men in their honesty feel obliged to recommend that these are bona fide applications, one can well envisage mischievous or well-intentioned people starting week-end schools or courses in the inculcation of apparent bona fides. It would not be difficult to do.
Are they to question them about their knowledge of Parliamentary procedure? Lots of us, when we first come to the House of Commons, do not know very much about Parliamentary procedure. We learn about it as we go along. How unfair it would be to say that a potential candidate was not in good faith because he could not answer a question about whether a Motion was exempted business and, if not, why not, or something of that nature.
There are, therefore, a great many dangers in this recommended procedure. I look forward with great anxiety to the further and, no doubt, longer report which we shall receive from the Select Committee in due course, in which the Committee will, no doubt, explain more fully the difficulty of reverting to what a number of hon. Members have thought the most obvious, easy and acceptable solution: that is, a reversion to the wartime practice by which there could be a few weeks' leave for a campaign and then a man would return to his unit if he were unsuccessful.
We understand, because it is in the Report, that that is not possible without legislation because of the disqualification in the 1957 Act, and so on. It would, however, be perfectly competent for this House to pass legislation making this possible, and I have no doubt that Parliament would expedite such legislation in view of the admittedly embarrassing situation which has arisen in the Services and in a few constituencies, although I think that at the constituency end it may turn out that we do not have, as the newspapers foresaw, ballot papers 5 yards long or any nonsense of that sort—because, very helpfully, the Secretary of State, in the House of Commons, reminded would-be candidates or people who want to get out of the forces that it was not really necessary for them to proceed to nomination once they got their release. The right hon. Gentleman has thus saved them their £150 deposit, which was very thoughtful of him and I am sure that they appreciate it.
Seriously, however, I think that most hon. Members, as at present advised—except by the Select Committee, of course—would prefer a reversion to the wartime practice. After all, it has been possible for National Service men to be recalled to their units after fighting an election. I do not know whether there have been any cases in which that has happened, but it is perfectly possible. Therefore, I do not see that there would be insuperable objection to the same procedure in the case of Regular soldiers.
We should not let this recommendation go through until we have rather more substantial assurances that this procedure of a panel of seven people is meant to be, and will be, only temporary. Although this has been said about it, it is not stated in the Select Committee's Report. The Select Committee states, at the top of page 3:
The immediate steps to deal with this situation should, in Your Committee's view, be administrative, since legislation would involve too long a delay.
The Select Committee does not, however, say in terms that it should be temporary as well as immediate. In paragraph 15, summing up the recommendation, again there is no suggestion that it is to be temporary. It might be completely permanent for all one can read to the contrary.
Therefore, we certainly cannot let the Motion, embodying, as it does, what seems to be a new and extraordinarily dangerous departure from ordinary constitutional practice, go through without at least ventilating the matter fairly thoroughly.

10.35 p.m.

Brigadier Terence Clarke: I am most grateful to be allowed to say a few words. The existing rules were designed to stop people like myself, and at least two others, coming into the House; but we came. I was a Regular serving soldier, and the then Labour Secretary of State for War decided—in his wisdom, I think—that people should not be allowed to stand again as I stood at that time. But we were entirely within the rules. We were allowed to put up as candidates. If we failed, we could go back into the Service; if we succeeded, we could stay here. That worked very well, and

we all stayed in the House. But we might very well have gone back to where we had been in the Service.
I do not think that a Service man should be allowed to stand for Parliament and perhaps criticise the Secretary of State for War, maybe saying that he is a two-faced chap looking both ways and has not a clue what he is doing, and then go back and serve his time and pretend that nothing had happened. One cannot do that sort of thing. I made a particular point of never mentioning a Service matter during the election campaign. When I was asked about Service matters I said that I would attack the Secretary of State for War when the election was over and I had been elected to the House. Then I even suggested one night that the Secretary of State should go and cut his throat, but it was said only in the friendliest way.
It was a reasonable decision on a difficult matter in 1949 that anyone standing for Parliament would in future, after the 1950 General Election, have to resign his commission or otherwise come out of the Service first and then put up as a candidate. That decision, of course, opened the door wide and left the situation as it is today. All would be well if there was not a rush of Service men to stand as candidates, chiefly bogus, not wanting to stand at all, but some, of course, genuine. That is the situation with which the Secretary of State is faced.
I think a mountain has been made out of a molehill. These Service men are either keen politicians or keen soldiers. When they sign on the dotted line to serve for three or six years, or whatever period it is, they ought to have some clue whether they want to be soldiers or politicians. If a man signs to be a soldier, he should continue to be a soldier or buy himself out and then stand as a politician free of the Service and unable to return to it.
At the moment we have the situation, that a man may sign on for three years and then six months later see a girl whom he wants to marry and be offered a good job elsewhere at double the pay, and he may think "This is an easy way out. I will stand for Parliament. I shall not get in, but I shall not have to buy my discharge." Having signed for three years, he should either buy his discharge


and stand for Parliament or buy his discharge and marry the girl. Whichever way he looks, he cannot have it both ways. But he wants to get out of buying his discharge and still wants to marry the girl, and he wants to have it as an each-way bet. I suggest that the Select Committee might think about this once more and say that where a soldier has committed himself to serve for three, six or seven years or whatever it is, he should stand by that commitment or buy himself out and then stand for Parliament, but not he allowed to have it both ways.
I am glad to have been allowed to make that small statement. I have felt for a long time that a mistake was made in those days and that Parliament is now suffering for it.

10.40 p.m.

Sir Myer Galpern: I do not propose to follow the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) in his wanderings in the matrimonial field of Service men. They have enough trouble without our trying to heap advice on top of the manoeuvres referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg).
Unlike my hon. Friend, I am not against the principle of this Motion. I want to consider its practical applications. It says
… for the purpose of contesting a Parliamentary election. …
But in the interim report of the Select Committee reference is made to "a particular Parliamentary election." Is there a distinction between the two? It seems to indicate that a Service man can say that he wishes to be a candidate at a general election as opposed to becoming a candidate at a by-election.
My submission is that the words "a Parliamentary election" can embrace the forthcoming General Election, and this raises the question of the date at which a candidate should be discharged from the Services. The Servants of the Crown (Parliamentary Candidature) Order, 1960, says clearly that a Service man shall not issue an address to electors or publicly announce himself, or allow himself to be publicly announced, as a candidate or prospective candidate for election in any constituency. I submit that the mere fact that a Service man makes an application where a by-election

has been announced means that he has announced to the public that he proposes to become a candidate and that he is automatically entitled to discharge from the Services.
I raise this matter because of the position of civil servants. As soon as it appears in the Press that he has been selected as a prospective Parliamentary candidate a civil servant is required to resign his post. This has recently caused hardship in a case in Glasgow. A man was selected on a Sunday, and next morning, when the Press had carried the story, he was called on to resign from his job at £1,200 a year. The man has since been unemployed. The difficulty is that everyone knows he is a Parliamentary candidate and no one wants to employ him for only a temporary period, since the General Election can at most be only another eighteen months away and it is also known that he is likely to be returned for that seat. Does not this situation place Servicemen in a rather more favourable position than that enjoyed by civil servants, since the announcement of a prospective candidacy may be made as much as four years in advance of a General Election?
I believe that an individual who has asked for a nomination paper has gone further than the stage of a mere announcement that he has been selected to fight a constituency at a forthcoming General Election, and it seems to me therefore that all those who have applied for nomination papers, 496 of them, should, according to my reading of the 1960 Order, be discharged.
I do not want to go too deeply into some aspects of this, because I would be ruled out of order if I did so, but I should like the Secretary of State for War to deal with this point. If this Motion is passed, and if an individual in the Army applies to become a candidate at the next General Election, and the Committee which is to be set up vets his application and approves it as a bona fide application, will the individual be discharged immediately, even though the election may not be fought for another year?

10.46 p.m.

Mr. A. R. Wise: I think that the difficulty of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) about General Elections has


rather solved itself. As I read the Order, I do not think that a man can apply for release for an election which has not yet been put on the tapis. A man cannot obtain a nomination paper until there is an election for which he can be selected.

Sir M. Galpern: That is my point. Why is the man in the Army in a more favourable position that the civil servant who does not know when the election will take place but is still called on to resign as soon as his candidature is announced?

Mr. Wise: I sympathise with civil servants who are put in that position, but that does not seem to be relevant to this discussion.
I agree with the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg), who put forward a series of problems which require very close examination, We are doing something which is very strange in a democratic constitution, that is, allowing a body of men to decide whether or not a man really means what he says when he says that he wants to stand for Parliament.
The only parallel of which I can think was the conscientious objectors' tribunal during the last war, but the two things are not the same. In the case of the conscientious objector there was a possibility for serious examination as to whether his objections were real, and whether he was entitled to avoid the Services. In this case, suppose an honest young man is summoned before this tribunal and is asked: "Will you try to satisfy us that you genuinely want to stand for Parliament?", and he gives the simple answer, "I think that £1,750 a year is a very nice salary". Is that or is that not genuine? Who on earth will be able to say whether it is genuine or not?
I see that these difficulties are more real with an honest man than with a dishonest man. It may be possible for the tribunal to see whether a young soldier is bogus or not. It cannot possibly, in my view, tell whether an honest young soldier is honest or not. Equally, I cannot see how it can carry out any sort of examination which will justify an imputation of insincerity.
As the hon. Member for Barking said, one cannot test their political knowledge. There are quite a number of us here who

might be very hard put to pass an examination, certainly at the time when we were first adopted for constituencies. Some, I might say, would probably find it hard to pass an examination now.

Mr. Robert Cooke: My hon. Friend should speak for himself.

Mr. Wise: I hear an indignant protest from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke). I feel sure that with suitable cramming he would qualify.

Mr. Cooke: What I said was that my hon. Friend should speak for himself.

Mr. Wise: It was an indignant protest. I am frightened, with the hon. Member for Barking, that this process might be extended. I do not like the idea that any other person—apart altogether from Service men—who happens to want to stand for Parliament should be equally subjected to some form of examination.

Captain John Litchfield: Is my hon. Friend arguing that any application to stand for Parliament should be accepted at its face value? I am sure he will agree that that may cause some abuse. Whom does he suggest should decide, if it is not the tribunal—the commanding officer, the Minister, or who?

Mr. Wise: That is precisely the problem we are up against. Is the bare statement of a desire to stand for Parliament to be accepted, or does the tribunal have to prove that the man concerned is a liar? If so, how will that be proved? That is the problem which I find it difficult to solve. I cannot see why we could not have had the necessary legislation passed to go back to the position as it was before the party opposite interfered with it. I am happy to see that hon. Members opposite regret their interference and are prepared to support us in this.
If the two parties, or, rather, the three parties—I beg the Liberal Party's pardon; it has three-sevenths of its strength here, which is more than can be said for the rest of us—are agreed that legislation is required it can be passed through the House at an astonishingly fast rate——

Mr. Driberg: Two days.

Mr. Wise: Two or three days, certainly. We could solve the problem in that way.
At the moment the Government's programme may be so congested that we cannot have this legislation—although I could mention one or two Bills which could be dropped—and in that case I should like an assurance from the Leader of the House on another matter, also raised by the hon. Member for Barking. There is no indication of the temporary character of this tribunal in anything that we have before us. If we had an assurance that in no circumstances would it exist for more than one year it would satisfy many of our objections.

10.53 p.m.

Mr. Donald Wade: It is clear from a perusal of the Report of the Select Committee that it had a difficult task to face. We must sympathise with it in the complexity of the problem. The Report strengthens the view that only legislation can solve the problem. I should like to ask one or two questions before approving the proposal.
I heard the statement of the Home Secretary before Christmas. I found it somewhat puzzling, and I should like to know what has happened in the interim period. I understood that the Home Secretary was to perform some administrative functions in this field whilst awaiting the outcome of the deliberations of the Select Committee. I should like to know what has happened, if that can be explained very briefly.
Secondly, how will the procedure work, and how speedily will it work? It is conceivable that a Writ might be moved shortly after a vacancy occurred, and there is only nine days between the receipt of the Writ and the last day for handing in the nomination. Is the Leader of the House satisfied that under the procedure proposed by the Select Committee all that has to be done can be done within that time?
Perhaps the most important point is what criteria will be used. How will they be applied? Will there be discrimination? How will the Committee decide? Will questions be asked about the political views of those who wish to be released? Are we to know the terms of reference to be laid down for the appointment of this Committee, or will

this Report be regarded as a sufficient indication of the terms of reference? Those are questions to which we should know the answers, for, after all, we are the guardians of our Parliamentary system.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: Somewhat unusually, I agree with what has been said by the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg), who indicated fairly and cogently what is in the minds of many hon. Members. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the reasonable way in which he moved the Motion. But, speaking in the direct way in which I prefer to put things, I must say that I think this is a piece of nonsense and that the Motion ought not be accepted. It is only too clearly a sort of makeshift arrangement to overcome a difficulty which, had the Government the resolution to deal with it, would not present a problem. It is a dangerous idea to appoint some committee with the superlative right to decide who shall be nominated to represent the people. I do not think that is justified by any of the excuses that I have heard or read in this Report.
What is the Committee to do? In war-time we had the O.C.T.U. system which provided a reasonable measurement by which to judge potential officer material. But what on earth will be the standard to be adopted by this Committee. I think that this is asking the impossible. I do not mind a committee wasting its time. There are a number of committees which are doing that and one more or less will not make any difference. But I do mind that this House should dare to set up a committee of this character to decide something which in the past had been decided on quite different principles.
I consider that this Motion should be withdrawn and the matter considered again. I see no difficulty about formulating legislation to deal with the subject. No Government have ever failed to get legislation passed quickly when that was necessary.
I do not think that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) made a valid point. I do not think that a lot of people would want to come out of the Services and lose the amount of a


deposit—which ought to be greater than it is considering the present-day value of money—in order to abuse the Secretary of State for War. There are cheaper methods of doing that, and I could suggest some myself.
This matter could be dealt with quite simply by legislation. Constitutional difficulties could be overcome. I beg the House not to take the sort of action suggested by this Motion. It is wrong. We know that it is wrong and we have no right to do what is wrong.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) characterised the recommendations of the Select Committee as a piece of nonsense. I do not know how he arrives at that conclusion, but there is one thing which will always make nonsense—and that it is when hon. Members know nothing about the subject and then come to the House and pontificate, taking a problem of great complexity and turning it into something simple because they have not taken the trouble to find out the facts.
As I am a member of the Select Committee, I must be as detached and objective as I possibly can, and I want to examine some of the propositions which have been put to us. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise) gets none out of ten. He suggests that what is before the House is the product of a bit of sloppy thinking on the part of the Labour Party. That is arrant nonsense, because the provisions which govern the intervention of Regular officers and other ranks into politics depend upon two Orders in Council of 1950 and 1960 which are a reversion to pre-war practice. The only big change which has been made is the passing of the House of Commons (Disqualification) Act, which was carried through by a Conservative Administration in 1957.
The hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) made the proposal that if the chap wants to marry the girl he should purchase his discharge. Here we come back to square one. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have failed to address themselves to how this problem comes about. There are a considerable number of men—more in the Air Force and the Navy than in the Army—who under no circumstances can pur-

chase their discharge. The position was further confused by the fact that when the Secretary of State was introducing the Army Reserve Act he said,
Incidentally, concerning the Regular Army, with the exception of recruits who have a statutory right to buy themselves out during their third month of service, no Regular soldier will be permitted to purchase his release except in the most exceptional cases during the period for which we are having to retain conscripted men."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th November, 1961; Vol. 650, c. 49.]
That statement was completely untrue. What he meant to say, and what his civil servants had told him to say, was that during the period of this Act a Regular soldier would be limited when he applied to purchase his discharge to the same conditions as applied to National Service men; in other words, he would have to wait six months. It is a fact that a number of chaps—particularly in the Navy and the Air Force—under no circumstances can purchase their discharge.
Let us assume for a moment that the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West and others on both sides of the House had their way; supposing the purchase of discharge were permitted. Would they accept this position: an officer—and it was an officer who started all this problem at the Lincoln byelection—applies for release and is granted it, and he walks out with his pension rights, his terminal gratuity, and so on, and an other rank who makes application has to forfeit them all and possibly to pay £250 in addition. Are hon. Members prepared to justify that to their constituents?
Let me deal with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg), which clearly has the support of the hon. Member for Shipley. Let us see how we can return to the war-time situation. Many of us were released to contest the 1945 election. Had we fought that election and not been elected the very next day we should have been due back to our units. If we had not gone we should have been conscripted. The sanction existed of recall under the National Service Act which does not exist at present. That is the Secretary of State's dilemma.
Hon. Member's flights of imagination then lead them to this proposal: transfer these people to the Reserve. Which Reserve? One of the safeguards of the liberty of the subject in this country has


been that for 300 years Parliament has exercised the strictest control on the number of men who are serving and the conditions under which they serve. Indeed, it is only in recent times, and under the influence of the cold war, that it is being possible to call men up without coning to the House of Commons for authority. The House is rightly concerned about the Executive calling up large numbers of men who are beyond its control. The creation of a special reserve would be a breach of past traditions and safeguards.
I ask the House to consider the "easy legislation" spoken of by the hon. Member for Shipley. The suggestion would be to repeal the disqualification under the 1957 Act. How did that come about? In 1941 the House of Commons in its wisdom set up a Select Committee—it was a very powerful Select Cornmittee—to consider offices and profits. The recommendation was made that there should be a statutory disqualification on Regular soldiers from serving in the House of Commons. This was done because clearly they were influenced by what happened in Germany. Nothing which has happened since will have made any person concerned with democracy any more keen that Regular forces should take part in politics. This is the basic decision which was recommended in 1941. After the most careful examination, it was decided that a Regular officer or N.C.O. contemplating going into politics should make a decision once and for all. He was to be told, "If you go into politics, you leave the Regular forces". Are hon. Gentlemen prepared to breach that principle without the most careful consideration?
The Select Committee has recommended a safeguard to cover the individual who wants to stand for Parliament. It is the desire of hon. Members in all quarters of the House—the Leader of the House said so tonight—that the khaki-clad Hampden should have his chance, but in considering the rights of the individual we must surely stop for a moment and realise the necessity to safeguard the rights of the State. Privileges have to be balanced by obligations. We should be taking the most injudicious step, particularly at this time, if we welcomed the intervention of the Armed Forces into politics. My hon. Friend the Member for

Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) put his finger on the point when he spoke about the position of the Civil Service. The industrial worker in the employment of the State is allowed to fight an election. He can go back to his job. Does the House contemplate the possibility that the permanent secretary of a Department should suddenly walk out one day, fight a by-election, and return the next day?
I say this to my hon. Friend the Member for Barking and hon. Members on both sides. If they want to safeguard the rights of L.A.C. Snooks to go out and fight a by-election, on the principle, let us say, of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmanent, will they deny the same right to Air Chief Marshal Jones to go out and fight a campaign to double the V-bomber force? If one is admitted, the other must be admitted.
It must be remembered that until recent times this problem has never been concerned with other ranks. This has always been a problem concerned with officers. If hon. Members will spend half an hour doing a little homework they will discover that this problem popped up in the days of Good Queen Anne. The Statute of 1707 was concerned with a different problem in the State. It was concerned with the patronage of the Crown. What it forbade was not a man holding a commission or serving in the Armed Forces and being in the House of Commons. It forbade a man while he was a Member of the House of Commons being given a commission, because they were rightly concerned about the patronage of the Crown. In living memory there was a Captain Hope, an officer in the Guards, who in the 1920s was on the active list and a Member of the House of Commons. The House of Commons in its wisdom decided to put a stop to it.
If hon. Members are so concerned with the liberty of the subject in relation to other ranks, where do they draw the line? If they are going to jeopardise the security of the State, if they are going to encourage circumstances in which members of the Armed Forces can participate in politics and then expect to return to their duties, at what point do they draw the line?
One could ask, what about the Clerk of the House? Is he to be allowed to fight a political pause and the Second


Clerk Assistant to fight another and then both return to the House and behave as if nothing had happened? To pose a question in that form is to answer it, and if the private soldier or the leading aircraftman should genuinely wish to find a way out he should be given the chance. Yet I think the line has to be drawn somewhere and that the Report of the Select Committee of 1941—and I repeat that it was a very powerful Select Committee—was right in ruling that a line has to be drawn. It should be on the Statute Book that there should be an absolute disqualification.
My hon. Friend the Member for Barking has not appreciated the simple point involved, nor has he appreciated the consequences of this decision. I urge him to study the House of Commons (Disqualification) Act, and, if he will do so, he will find in Section 11 that he has to sign a declaration when he is nominated that he is not disqualified. We have all had to sign it, but a member of the Armed Forces cannot sign that; if he does, then he is committing perjury. There is no legislative way out, and if the House repealed the provisions of the 1957 Act we should still be left with the Regulations as they are, debarring a member of the Armed Forces from taking part in any political election.
Therefore, in order to put things right, we have to go right back to the wartime conditions which permitted an officer or an other rank to take part in politics while still serving, but if we do that we shall be taking several steps down the slippery slope and eventually find, as this House did in Cromwell's time, that somebody will walk in and say "Take away that shining bauble".

11.12 p.m.

Mr. Robert Cooke: As the hour is late I will not speak for quite so long as some hon. Members, but I would just mention that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) was surely himself a frivolous candidate when he first stood for Parliament, when I understand that he stood as a Member of the Liberal Party. Since then he has become a valiant Member of our side.
The idea of a panel is no good. I had to face a panel when I became a Conservative candidate, and that panel at

the Conservative Central Office did its best to dissuade me from ever taking part in politics. The best way to solve this problem is to provide that to obtain nomination papers in the first place a candidate must pay £150 deposit. He would have to go to the town clerk's office and say, "I want nomination papers and I will pay the deposit. No one but a bona fide candidate would do that, and any bona fide candidate would be prepared to provide the £150. That would also get around the legal difficulties about which the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has spoken, because one would have got one's paper as a Service candidate and yet not have committed perjury by signing until one was actually discharged.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Member has got it wrong. At the point when a Service man signs the declaration he is committing perjury.

Mr. Cooke: One would pay the £150 in order to get the nomination papers. At that stage, one would not be doing anything illegal as a Service candidate but would, surely be showing oneself to be a genuine candidate.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Does not the hon. Member realise that it is possible to withdraw at a later stage and get one's £150 back?

Mr. Cooke: I am proposing that one should not be in a position to withdraw. If that point could be put right in law, surely it would overcome all the difficulties of the present case. I should like to hear argument about this suggestion, because I regard it as worth while.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: I intend to be even shorter than my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke). I am sorry that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), who knows the respect which I hold for a number of his views, went so far as to suggest that anyone who took a different view had necessarily done no "homework". A number of us have been very interested in this problem. The fact that we are present to speak in the debate should indicate to the hon. Member that we have taken an active interest in the problem.
A number of hon. Members have spoken. but I am, I think, the only hon.


Member in the debate so far who applied for leave in 1945 but did not get elected. One other hon. Member who has spoken was similarly released, under the wartime regulations, but he was, I believe, elected.
In 1945, I stood for a strong Socialist-held constituency and in due course I was thoroughly and soundly defeated. During that election I remember making as tough remarks about the Government who were elected as anyone could make, but afterwards I certainly was not victimised by anybody. Indeed, by a strange coincidence I was almost immediately promoted to major on my return. That was a fairly benevolent act.
The hon. Member for Dudley has made a number of admittedly telling arguments about why it is difficult to return to the position of the wartime regulations. Those, however, are arguments adduced by the hon. Member but are not arguments which appear in the Report of the Select Committee, which in paragraph 7 deals solely with the difficulties of delay in legislation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) said that that part of it was nonsense. I must share his view that it is nonsense for a Government to say that when there is general agreement between the parties about the objective legislation cannot be rushed quickly through the House of Commons. I have not been a Member nearly as long as other hon. Members, but I know that there have been plenty of occasions when legislation has been desired by the Government of the day and the whole thing has been done in 48 hours.

Mr. Wigg: We all know that a Government can carry legislation through in 48 hours. What we want to be told is what the legislation will do and what it is about.

Mr. Bennett: I was dealing with the arguments in paragraph 7 of the Select Committee's Report, which are not positive arguments, against a return to the immediate post-war practice. The arguments in paragraph 7 are that legislation would delay matters too long. The hon. Member for Dudley can read them for himself. The Report does not go into the arguments that the hon. Member has made. Had it dealt with some of the arguments I would have found it more interesting reading. Those, however, are

not the arguments which have been adduced.
In answer to the hon. Member's last question, which was a fair one, and in the genuine dilemma in which we are placed, I have not yet heard from any section of the House, from the Government or from any Member of the Select Committee, any convincing reason why we cannot return by legislation to the immediate post-war practice by which a person was given a period of leave and if he did not succeed he returned to the Armed Forces, whether he was an officer or other rank. I have yet to be convinced that the paraphernalia which is suggested is preferable to a system which worked perfectly well and did not lead to any of the evils which hon. Members have suggested.

11.19 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: I came in to this debate with about as near to an open mind as I am ever likely to achieve on any subject. The hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. F. M. Bennett), although I am sure he listened to what my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) said, seemed not to have comprehended it. My hon. Friend proved conclusively that it would be not impossible, but unwise at least, to return to the system that prevailed during the war. That was the argument to which the whole of my hon. Friend's speech was directed.
My hon. Friend's case was conclusive, because—we are all talking about precedents developing into something broader later—he proved that there would be considerable dangers in returning to the old system. If one returned to it one would have a position in which serving officers or other ranks would be able to participate in politics in a way which this House has over many centuries tried to reject.
I think that my hon. Friend's argument on that side of it is absolutely conclusive, but where he is in error is that he thinks that because he has proved that part of the argument conclusively he has therefore put the case for this proposition. I do not think he has done that. I did not understand this before, but when he shows me the facts I think it would be quite wrong for this House to try to return to the system we had at the time of the war. But that is not an argument


in favour of the proposition before us, because, just as my hon. Friend says that there are precedents that we must observe going back to the days of Queen Anne, there are many other precedents with which the House should be concerned governing the way in which this House interferes with people who put up as candidates for election. This is a very tender matter indeed.
Of course, there are provisions whereby this House makes whole categories of people who are not entitled to stand for Parliament—peers, lunatics and some others—but what we are doing here is to specify particular people who should not be entitled to stand for one reason or another. That is a complete novelty. The only comparison—I do not say it is a direct one, but it comes near it—was the Wilkes case, when the House of Commons was, in effect, saying "This particular man is not entitled to sit in the House of Commons." That is what we are doing here, except that we are giving to a committee outside this House the power to decide whether a particular man should stand or not. This is the very thing that the House of Commons should never have the right to do. The House of Commons should never have the right to point to any citizen as a particular individual and say "That man has no right to stand for the House of Commons." The House can pass laws saying that categories of people should be rejected, but to have any committee saying that a particular man is to be singled out as a person who is not entitled to stand for the House of Commons is to introduce an entirely novel principle. So far as I can see, it has never been attempted to be applied in any previous case except probably in the Wilkes case.

Mr. Wigg: Before I go outside and shoot myself as a strangler of liberty, may I remind my hon. Friend that the gentlemen he is talking about are not Wilkes? They are men who have undertaken a specific obligation with their eyes open, and they have increased rates of pay for serving longer, more for six years than for three, and more for nine years than for six—and they are very considerable sums. One needs to get this into focus. One should remember that there are contracts and obligations that are entered into, which one should occasionally be expected to honour.

Mr. Foot: All right; this is my hon. Friend's proposition. He is carrying it much further than he did before. We might have a Clause in the Bill under which these people are called up to say that one of the obligations that they have to undertake is that they shall not be able to stand as a candidate for Parliament during the period. That would cover my hon. Friends' point. That is a proposition which might be considered by the Select Committee. If my hon. Friend is so strongly in favour of that proposition he should be supporting us in allowing the Select Committee to examine the matter a little further so that he could put the case to it as powerfully as I am sure he would be able to.
But that intervention was not a denial of what I was saying. I thought that my hon. Friend was going to deal with my main proposition, that what the House is being asked to do tonight is something that it has never been asked to do before, which is to single out individual people and tell them "You, not because of your category of person, not because of your qualifications of any kind, but you as an individual are not to be allowed to stand for the House of Commons."
The fact that we are to hand over this procedure to seven wise men does not make it any better. If anything, it makes it worse. It means that power will go from this House. I am sure that the Leader of the House will attempt to define the criteria he thinks should be applied, but who is he to lay them down for the Committee? His views are not the law of the land. We are asking seven wise men to carry out an entirely unreasonable function. The dishonest applicant will have a better chance of getting through than the honest one.
I agree that what I have said does not solve the problem. Nor, despite that tremendous learning which we all respect, did my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley solve it. Therefore, since this is an entirely new principle which is possibly dangerous, the best course is for the Government to take this Motion away. But I am convinced that it is no use introducing the legislation suggested by the hon. Member for Torquay, for that was knocked on the head by the Select Committee and by my hon.


Friend the Member for Dudley. What has not been destroyed is the solid argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) against the proposition on which we are asked to vote.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: Is my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) proposing that the House should do nothing and should allow the present situation to continue? If we take this Report away and do nothing, until some legislation is passed, anyone will be able to stand.

Mr. Foot: All of us agree that this is a very puzzling and awkward problem. The matter was referred to a Select Committee for solution, but the solution it proposes is unsatisfactory. I suggest that it be asked to think out something better.

11.28 p.m.

Dr. Alan Glyn: It is clear that the problem will never be resolved in this way. Finally, it must be resolved by legislation passed with the agreement of both parties. On the other hand, we are faced with the practical difficulty of doing something now. The Select Committee's Report states that the Committee intends to press on without delay in order to present a further report, and I am prepared to accept this Motion meantime, because something has to be done now. If the Committee sits again within a reasonable time and produces a solution, it is not unreasonable for the House to wait to judge what further steps should be taken then.
Hon. Members on both sides have suggested that we might go back to pre-war legislation. There is no reason why a man should not stand providing he returns to the Services afterwards and honours his contract. The Select Committee is to be congratulated on producing an interim solution, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will give an assurance that it is definitely only an interim solution and that we shall not have to wait long for the next report of the Committee, and that we shall get a chance to debate this question and finalise it by agreed legislation so that we do not have to resort again to these temporary measures.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: I thought that I had done my homework and that I understood this problem, but as the debate has gone on

one great alarm has grown in my mind, and it was greatly strengthened by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). My hon. Friend made a powerful speech. In fact, it was a bit too powerful because he proved to me that no legislation is possible.

Mr. Wigg: There is only one perfect solution, and that is to face the problem that has created it and introduce selective service.

Mr. Crossman: That is a rapid piece of non-partisan advice.
My hon. Friend has revealed that we have no prospect that the Select Committee in its second report will be able to produce any kind of unanimous proposal for legislation.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn). If this were merely temporary, if it were merely for the next batch of by-elections, I might say that it is intolerable constitutionally, that all the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) apply, but since it is valid for only four or five weeks, we can forget it. But my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley has told us something different. He knows. He is on the Select Committee. He says that this may not be temporary; that this may be the permanent solution and that we must not pass it this evening as a merely temporary solution.
I was puzzled by the White Paper not telling us that this was temporary. It is not written by stupid men. It makes it clear that it does not say it is temporary. If we pass this, we pass it neither as temporary nor permanent but as the law of the land. It is a recommendation of the Government, and therefore it is no good asking the Government for an assurance that there will be legislation, because they cannot assure us that the Select Committee will or will not reach a solution.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) said that he knew the right solution. It is clear that if he had his way my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley would fight to his dying breath to prevent that recommendation from going through, and it would not be the speedy measure which the House required.

Mr. Hirst: It would be speedy in spite of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg).

Mr. Crossman: That may be so, but I suggest that there are the most serious constitutional objections to this kind of legislation. A citizen army in war time is a different thing from a professional army in peace time. It might be possible during a war to say that all citizens should be permitted to leave the Forces and fight elections, and even discuss politics, but with a country which has a distrust and fear of growing political offices, I do not think that we should laugh at the idea that we allow serving officers to have complete freedom to come out and fight for or against the independent deterrent.
The Select Committee was completely right to warn us that we are not to look forward to that as an easy solution, and to warn us that at present it does not see a solution. It was right of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley to appraise the House of the situation it faces after this interim report of the Select Committee. The situation is that the Committee started with the conviction that it would find a solution, but the more it looked at this the more awkward it found it, because it found no prospect of a unanimous solution, or any solution, which would not cause the most grievous difficulty when it came to passing the necessary legislation.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: Can the hon. Gentleman describe more precisely the evil we are trying to cure? I should like him to say what sort of people he thinks have up to now been trying to get out. Is it Colonel Blimp air marshals trying to bring the Forces into politics, or individuals using a device to get out of the Services?

Mr. Crossman: We are not discussing the past but the future. We are discussing the constitutional effect of this. If in the course of trying to cure one temporary evil, which is not very important, we were to create a grave evil, the legislation would not be justified. If, in order to deal with these problems, we pass an Act which in peace time would permit air marshals to fight each other at the hustings on a major matter of Government policy, it would be an infinitely greater evil. We would have cured a minor evil by creating a greater one.
I have said that I wholly agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the

Member for Dudley—but still I turn back to the highly significant fact that in the course of his speech, defending the Select Committee, he was not able to say a single word in favour of this proposal. He may make another speech, but he made a very long speech tonight, to which I listened very carefully. It was a most powerful speech against the belief that legislation could cure this problem, but he did not give one word of defence of the new proposal. Why? Because he is a good democrat.
He did not really think that it was a good thing that this House should set up a committee to decide on the bona fides of candidates. He would not have dreamed of recommending this if he saw any possibility of a legislative solution. It is the strength of his democratic convictions which drives him to this position. He said, "I do not want to legislate for air marshals, or let this terrible danger come about, so we will agree on this solution. It is a pretty awful one, but it is the only one that will prevent this danger arising."
There are other ways. We could tell ourselves, "Perhaps the dangers are not as great as we imagine." We could have one constitutional monstrosity, or another, which is the Select Committee's positive recommendation—or, thirdly, we could do nothing and see what happened at Rotherham and Colne Valley. That would not be satisfactory, but we would at least not be making a hole in our Constitution.
I am not saying it is right, but I agree with hon. Members on both sides of the House who say that we do not have to decide this evening. We have had this discussion; we have learnt something from it. Surely it is possible for the Government to agree that we should not decide upon it tonight, when no satisfactory defence of the proposal has been made, and we know the difficulty involved in arriving at any final solution in legislation. Perhaps there is some way out. All we know is that we do not know what that way out is at the moment. Neither in the Report nor in the kind of legislation most of us thought possible is there a right solution.
If we are convinced of this by the debate we have had, surely the right proposal is to say, "Let us think


again". It is more important to do this and preserve our Constitution than to accelerate two by-elections. We can survive for a few more weeks without a by-election, but not this breach in our Constitution, which we will be making in a desperate effort to patch things up. The Government must do two things. First, they must tell us that in their view there is a reasonable chance of legislation, which would contradict the view put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley—and that is a formidable task—and then, having contradicted my hon. Friend, they must put forward a word in defence of a committee appointed by us to discuss the bona fides of a candidate and to prove to us that they would be prepared, in any other situation, to bring this proposal forward in connection with civilians or anybody else.
If the Minister cannot do either of these things—and I submit that he cannot—I beg him to withdraw this Motion, because it is just possible that we may find something or that the Select Committee can be asked to examine the matter again and try to find something less unsatisfactory than what we have at present.

11.40 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: I came to this debate with a completely open mind. As a close neighbour of the constituencies immediately involved, I have known for some time of the confounded nuisance that this has been to those who are responsible for preparing for the pending by-elections, and I was looking forward to hearing a cogent case argued which would convince me that a practical solution had been found. I was completely disappointed by the case which has been put forward.
My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) said that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) did not make out a case for the proposal. The astounding thing is that no other right hon. or hon. Member who advanced a view supporting the Select Committee's Report has made out that case either. The Leader of the House carefully avoided making out the case, and I began to be suspicious at that stage. Why should not the right hon. Gentleman have made out the case

straight away and so helped the debate along?
I fully understand the force of the arguments of the hon. Member for Dudley, and I should like to be on record as agreeing with him about the dangers which he pointed out and which relate rather to the future than to the past. We have to safeguard ourselves against the danger of the Armed Forces becoming involved in the political life of the country. But, although my hon. Friend has argued that we must do something to avoid that danger, he has not started to make out the case for allowing ourselves to accept anything which limits the liberty of any citizen to decide and to accept the encouragement of his friends and associates and become a candidate for a Parliamentary seat.
I am horrified at the possible situations which this Committee of seven might have to face. Suppose a Service man said he had been in contact with a political party in a constituency in which he might be invited to stand as a candidate. Is that to be evidence that he is not a genuine candidate? On the other hand, if someone is not connected with an established political party, if he is independent and is connected with people with some new ideas, will the Committee rule that his is not a serious candidature and must not be allowed? Even to consider some of the situations which might arise makes it immediately clear that this would be a monstrous new departure, giving power to appointed people to decide something which has never yet been given to a committee to decide, but has always been left to the electorate. It must be apparent to the Leader of the House that the sensibility of the candidate, and whether he is a crank or not—assuming that he does not break the law in the way in which he signs his declaration—has always been left, and must be left, to the electorate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) mentioned the case of John Wilkes. He was interrupted and was told that it was not a true comparison. But I think the comparison is even stronger than was suggested by my hon. Friend. One of the arguments used against John Wilkes was that he was not a serious candidate and sometimes the argument was advanced by


people who had other reasons to oppose him.
The case made out by those hon. Members who supported the Report has failed to convince many hon. Members that this is the time to adopt this hurried proposal. Many people are worried that the forthcoming elections will be a farce and not properly conducted. There is another point of view. It is conceivable that a large number of the candidates who are not serious about this matter will disappear before nomination day. Most of them have no intention of producing £150. Therefore, we must agree that the argument of safeguarding these by-elections cannot be decisive for rushing to accept such a dangerous new proposal. That leaves the position of safeguarding the Armed Forces in relation to politics.
This proposal ought to be considered more thoroughly and at greater leisure. Everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley convinced me that it ought to be considered carefully because it is so serious in its effect on the future of the State and the Armed Forces. I join my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite in urging the Government to reconsider it, and I urge my colleagues on the Committee not to insist on the Motion but to take the sense of the House and, without a Division, to agree to take the proposal back.

11.46 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Walker: This has been a good and vigorous debate—a real debate, with an interchange of minds. It has appeared that the problem is a good deal more difficult than many people thought when they met it for the first time. The Committee was unanimous in its recommendation; there was no difference of opinion. The whole Committee, of which I was a member, felt that this was the right solution for the moment—and that is still my view, for reasons which I will give.
It is an interim solution. As is said in paragraph 7, these are immediate steps proposed to deal with an immediate problem, which is a little more urgent and difficult than some hon. Members have allowed. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) that if this were a permanent principle it would be highly dangerous

and improper to introduce it into our legislation; we could not introduce as a permanent principle that any committee or anybody should decide whether someone could run for Parliament. But this is an interim, short-term solution. I assure my hon Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) that I should not dream of voting for it if I thought that it were anything but an interim, immediate, short-term solution.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) said, there are two different and distinct problems. One is the question of the by-elections, which have been postponed and postponed pending some temporary solution. Hon. Members talk of a great constitutional principle, but one great constitutional principle is that constituencies should not unduly long remain unrepresented in the House. It is very important to find a solution which will enable the Writs to be moved. They have not been moved pending some temporary solution because there is some danger—I agree that it is often exaggerated—of a rather large number of people on the poll, and that makes our electoral system very difficult to run.
But there is a further reason—that men have discovered a way of the Services which is a dodge. They merely announce their intention to run for Parliament, and they must be released, if they are to be released at all, before they pay their deposit or are nominated. If they are nominated while in the Services they are committing perjury. To enable them to be candidates they must be released, but, having been released, they need not be nominated and pay their £150. With existing legislation there is no way out of this difficulty. There are two separate problems. One is that of getting on with the by-elections and the other—it has to be a quick solution—is to prevent people from using this loophole to get out of the Services.
Many hon. Members said, "Do nothing", but I do not know whether they realised what that means. Since the Home Secretary made his statement, the Services have stopped releasing people for this purpose; there was never an absolute right to be released in order to run for Parliament, but there was an effective right. Now people who ask to be released in order to be candidates are treated in exactly the


same way as people who want to be released for other reasons, for example to run a greengrocer's shop or to get married. Therefore, there is no longer any effective right to be released to run for Parliament, as there used to be. Doing nothing would mean that in practice nobody through this administrative arrangement would be released. The Select Committee came to the conclusion—it is very clearly set out—that the administrative arrangement that the Services are now working is not satisfactory, We must find some short-run temporary way of letting the bone fide man run without opening the whole flood gates of people coming out of the Services by this dodge.

Mr. Driberg: When we say "do nothing." we mean revoke the administrative arrangements announced so obliquely on 18th December, before which there was not an absolute flood of applications. There was only a trickle. It was not all that many.

Mr. Gordon Walker: First, I do not know whether Parliament without passing legislation could revoke this administrative arrangement. Secondly, it is not only the flood of people coming on to the ballot paper. It is the flood of people who might get out of the Services through this dodge, which would not correspond to the intention of Parliament. What the Select Committee has proposed are two solutions. First, to allow the bona fide man to run, which at the moment he cannot do under the administrative arrangement. The Select Committee proposes that the administrative arrangement should be altered, and the Government have said that they will accept this. The second proposal of the Select Committee is that the Services should not be allowed to decide who is bona fide and who is not bona fide.
This is the real problem we faced as a Committee. I will tell the House later why we could not quickly come to the legislative proposals. We were trying to do these two things—to let the bona fide man through and to take the decision away from the Services and make it a political one. We therefore came to the unanimous conclusion, after having thought out many alternatives, many of which have been discussed by hon. Members tonight, that the only possible way as a temporary short-run make-

shift arrangement—I agree with the hon. Member for Shipley that it is a make-shift arrangement; it does not claim to be anything else—was to set up a committee. I think that the Government have chosen admirable people. I wholly agree with the names. We think it should be left to the Committee in the short period to make this difficult decision to the best of its ability, without the Government laying upon the Committee the exact way in which it should do it.
It will be difficult for the Committee to find criteria by which to judge. It would be very wrong if this became a permanent or even a long-term solution. For the reasons I have tried to give my hon. Friend the Member for Barking, we must come to a quick decision to enable by-elections to be fought and to stop this gap that allowed people out.
I am certain that the Select Committee will find a permanent solution. We are going to do it as quickly as we possibly can. It will not be done as easily as hon. Members opposite have suggested. The problem is not Parliamentary time for getting legislation through. The problem is that the Select Committee feels that the legislation is quite complicated. It needs to be looked at. There are a number of inter-related Acts. The time that is needed is not the time of Parliament but the time the Committee feels that it must have to go very thoroughly into this very difficult constitutional legislation to make absolutely certain that it will put before the House a water-tight, properly thought out proposal. I only hope that when the Select Committee report comes everybody in the House will get it through in an afternoon. It is extremely important that it should get through quickly to take the place of this interim, temporary and make-shift arrangement.
However, I am certain that it would have been wrong for the Select Committee to have come forward with a hurried report on difficult constitutional legislation. It would have been undigested. It would have possibly opened up many dangerous things. This has to be thought out. I am certain that the solution can be found. We cannot simply go back to the pre-war arrangement, for reasons which hon. Members have given. New legislation has been passed since


then and it is a Regular and not a conscript Army. I am certain that we can get a permanent solution fairly soon which we can put before the House and which I hope the House will pass quickly.
It must involve legislation. There is not any other way but legislation which will give us a proper permanent solution to the problem. As it is bound to take a little time and as it would have been very wrong to go on postponing by-elections, the Select Committee felt unanimously that it was proper to put forward this not very satisfactory solution as the best we could think of. Nobody else has thought of a better one, except to go back and leave the by-elections not being fought. The best arrangements that we can think of—and we came to this unanimously after anxious discussion and after hearing a great deal of evidence—is that which is before the House. I urge my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite to accept this as an interim solution, a short-term solution, which in all the circumstances is the best.

Mr. Crossman: My right hon. Friend has said three times that he was completely certain that the Select Committee would come to a final solution. Could I ask him if that is a purely personal view or whether it is the view of the Committee?

Mr. Gordon Walker: The Committee has not discussed a permanent solution, but I am on the Committee and respectfully point out that I know more about it than my hon. Friend.

Mr. Crossman: My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley was also on the Select Committee, but he made it clear that there was no permanent solution; at least, that was his view. All I ask is to be told how far what we have been told tonight is a personal view, or whether it is the view of the Committee as a whole.

Mr. Wigg: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is really too difficult to have a double reply to an intervention.

Mr. Gordon Walker: All I can say is that before long we shall find a permanent solution.

Mr. Iain Macleod: All who have heard what has been said tonight will

agree that it has been a fine debate. There are three points which I wish to raise.
First, whatever view we may take, if we do decide to adopt this Motion, it has to be remembered that there has been no breath of criticism of the names which I put earlier before the House. Everybody acknowledges that they will bring independent minds and fine judgment to a most difficult task. Secondly, I must make this point. It is, after all, a rare situation—it must be—that brings together the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) and the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) on the one side, and the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) and the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. F. M. Bennett) on the other; and let me add my weight to what they have said. I believe passionately that if a man wants to argue that the world is flat and to make that the basis of his parliamentary candidature, then he has a right to do so. It is no use saying that it is for him to be adopted by one of the three parties known to this House, or one of the other parties to which some people have a certain allegiance. Let us not forget that independents have an absolute right to put their views before the electorate.
Thirdly, we are bringing this Motion before the House with considerable speed. There is no overwhelming desire on the part of the Government—[Interruption.]—no, indeed there is not—to engage in by-elections at the present time. Each of the four vacancies that there are at present are, by the traditions of this House, at the call of the Labour Party. Yet I agree that when we are considering the parliamentary position we must not forget the right of the four constituencies with which we are concerned.
If I can now turn to the individual points made in this discussion, I would say first that the hon. Member for Barking took some issue with the point of view put forward by the Home Secretary that it was difficult, if not impossible, to decide as things stand at present.

Mr. Driberg: I agreed with him.

Mr. Macleod: Yes, but the point made by the Home Secretary was that some new means had to be devised. It is not right to suggest that the administrative arrangements announced, in effect,


on 18th December have constituted a complete iron curtain in this direction. I am told that so far, six people, all other ranks, one from the Navy, two from the Army and three from the Royal Air Force, have been approved for ordinary discharge, although it is not certain from that—and this is one of the problems that one has to counter—that they will necessarily come up to the starting gate when the time for these elections comes.
I should like to refer to a point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern). I do not want to go into detail on his question about civil servants, because my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary dealt with that in answer to Oral Questions on 14th February and I simply refer the hon. Member to that entry in HANSARD. The hon. Member raised, however, a question about whether people might apply to the new body, if we set it up, for release, not for a by-election, but for the general election which is ahead, if they wanted to take on, say, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War in Stratford-on-Avon.
I think the answer to that question is simply, "Yes". They could make such an application if they wished and it would be up to the committee to decide whether, and to recommend accordingly, they were bona fide in their applications.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) asked how quickly, apart from anything else, we could do this. If we pass the Motion tonight, the Services will treat the issue of new instructions as a matter of considerable urgency. A meeting is planned between the Services and the Home Office for this week. We are very conscious of the point, which has been made, that there might be conceivably be late applications, which might still be genuine, coming in at the time of the issue of the Writ. We realise this and that it means moving with immense speed, because the last day for nomination comes not earlier than four days and not later than ten days after that time. We appreciate this point and we think that the machinery which has been suggested would be capable of dealing with it.
The true question which has been raised, which was posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise), the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale and others, is whether this is a satisfactory final answer and, if not, how quickly we can replace it. The answer to the first question is, clearly, "No". I agree with, and I adopt, the words of the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). This is an interim solution. Whatever view hon. Members take of it, it cannot be thought of by the House as anything other than that.
Therefore, if we pass the Motion tonight, we are in a sense chucking the problem back on to the lap of the Select Committee. The hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) will, however, agree that it is the House that is master of the Select Committee, and not the other way round. Everybody who is a Member of the Select Committee would agree with that, too.
We do not know what sort of answer the Select Committee would produce. It may be that there are firm objections to all the possibilities of legislation. As to the most popular one, however—that is, a simple return to the 1945 system, under which I myself obtained temporary discharge to fight the Western Isles constituency and finished easily bottom of the poll before I came to easier pastures nearer London—the difficulties in the way of returning to that practice are genuinely far more formidable than people realise, than those who heard, for example, the Home Secretary's initial statement on 18th December realised at the time.
So we do not know what solution, if any particular solution, the Select Committee will offer us. What we do know is that we do not take its answer today as final but we ask it to come back, and come back fairly soon—I do not want to put a term of weeks or whatever it may be on it, but this is an interim solution and I do not regard it as anything else—and tell us after it has studied and set out the complex legal matters that we know are there what it thinks the particular answer should be. If that is acceptable to the House, then I believe that the right thing for us to do would be to pass the Motion tonight.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) put forward the idea that one might, in effect, pay £150


for obtaining nomination papers. That would need legislation, and so we are, therefore, straight back in that field, and all it would amount to in the end—because, again, we should have no undertaking that the man would take part in the election—would be that the net result of passing the legislation was to enable other ranks at least to buy themselves out for £150 instead of about £250; and I cannot believe that for this exercise the House would really wish to embark upon legislation. But by all means let us look at all the possibilities that there may be.
Let me sum up what has been said. Everybody here is deeply anxious that no man, whatever his policies may be, whether he belongs to a party or not, should be denied the right to put his views forward to the electorate and so seek a place in this House. That is the right of all people. There are, as the hon. Member for Dudley pointed out to us, some conflicts perhaps inherent in that statement because people have taken on obligations to the Crown and it may be that in certain circumstances those two conflict. That is the dilemma we wish to find a way round.
We have put this to a Select Committee, both sides of the House, which has given it urgent consideration and has put a recommendation to us. My suggestion to the House is that we should accept and pass the Motion, but that we should do it—I am certain that all members of the Select Committee would accept this, too—on the understanding that this is a first and interim Report, that we are not satisfied and, indeed, we are not clear—let us be frank about it—in our own minds what the final solution should be, but we feel that a solution must be found more in consonance with the traditions of the House than the one that I recommend as a temporary measure to the House tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That it is expedient that an advisory Committee should be appointed by the Home Secretary to examine every application for release from the armed forces for the purpose of contesting a parliamentary election, and to report to the appropriate Service Minister, in each case, whether or not they are satisfied that it is a bona fide application.

HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND

Resolved,
That one-tenth of the sums deducted or set aside in the current year from the salaries of Members of Parliament under section one of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1939, and one-tenth of the contribution determined by the Treasury for the current year under section 1 of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1957, be appropriated for the purposes of section four of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1948.—[Mr. Wade.]

SCHOOLS, WILLESDEN

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]

12.10 a.m.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: It falls to me at this early hour of 19th February to raise the rather important constituency matter of Carlton Vale infants and Kilburn Park primary schools. This matter arose when constituents came to me about a certain dilemma with which they are faced, for they are naturally concerned about their children. As a result of inquiries, I went to see the schools on 10th January, but before doing so I had some correspondence with the borough education officer. He wrote to me on 17th December suggesting that before visiting the schools I could perhaps read the reports which the Ministry would doubtless make available to me.
These are reports which have been furnished to the Ministry and I have had some difficulty in obtaining copies. I wrote to the Ministry and received a letter from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary saying that they were confidential and would not be available except with the authority of the governors of the schools. It seems that the reports are confidential and cannot be published except by express direction of the governors and, if published, must be published in their entirety.
It seems extraordinary that an hon. Member should not be able to look into this matter when constituents come to him but is, instead, faced with a bar, inasmuch as unless the education authority is prepared to give him permission to look at a report it will be


withheld from him; yet he is the very person who should be able to look into these matters with care on behalf of his constituents.
If a board of governors of a school considers that it is against its interest to have a matter scrutinised by an M.P., then he will never be able to do so under these conditions. I suggest that the borough education officer's letter of 17th December was sufficient authority for the Parliamentary Secretary to have acted on.
The parents were naturally concerned whether their children were receiving fair education. These two schools are in an area of congested housing conditions where people are virtually living on top of one another. Many children get insufficient sleep. The parents are under a strain through no fault of their own. A heavy difficulty is imposed on the teachers. There is shortage of accommodation for them, and many are attracted to other areas. There is a difference in background and values not only with local children attending the schools but also foreign and Commonwealth children.
The result is that the teachers have to receive children who have had very little preparation for even an infants' school. Among those who left Carlton Vale for Kilburn Park in September last year, 24·5 per cent. had a reading age which was much lower than their chronological age. It stands to reason that the balance had a reading age much more in line. If the average age is taken as between seven and eight, the lowest recording is 5·1 and the highest recording is 10·0.
Another interesting feature is that if we consider the Kilburn Park school the number of teachers, including the head, in 1955–56 was 10. The teacher-pupil ratio was 26·8. In 1962–63 the number of teachers, including the head, was 7 4/10, and the teacher-pupil ratio 31·2, although I am glad to say that the number of grammar school places secured had risen from three to an estimated eight.
I stress this point. I consider that schools of this nature require very much more treatment than they are receiving, and I think it is only right that the Parliamentary Secretary should consider responsibility for it on his quota system. In such a case it should be possible for the local authority to go through the

appropriate channels and secure additional teachers from the quota.
If I might come for a moment to the quota, some rather strange things have been occurring. Recently we have had correspondence in which a certain gentleman from the constituency wrote to me and said:
I now find myself frustrated by administrative obduracy. Whilst, theoretically, other areas are in greater need of teachers I cannot at present leave this part of the country.
The Observer of 9th December, 1962, had this to say:
At one large departmental store the personnel officer said that there were already 20 teachers working in the building.
If one considers the Carlton Vale school, here is an area in which I consider the pupils require special attention. The staff are remarkably good, very industrious indeed, and the same remarks apply to Kilburn Park school where I think the teaching staff are devoted to their pupils. But at Carlton Vale there were many rooms which were vacant because of insufficiency of teachers.
What are these schools to do? If these are to be compared with other schools in the area, such as Braincroft, the standards are completely different. My hon. Friend could say that he could supply perhaps an additional teacher. If he says that this is impracticable because of the operation throughout the country of the quota, then how can these two schools, slightly above the quota, receive the appropriate standard for what these parents and pupils require?
It might be said that there is such a thing as an off the quota ration and that married women can be brought back into the service and allowed to be employed through the borough education officer, or he could say that there is part-time recruitment, but I should like to be told tonight what can be done for these parents who have a genuine anxiety. They feel that their children are not receiving the start in life which they should do at this early age.
That is one side of the coin. On the other side, the teaching staff feel that they are faced with a real situation. They want to do their utmost for the pupils who come before them. They find that they are insufficient in numbers. They find that some schools are easier to teach in than schools of this nature. They find that hours are long and inclined to be


extremely tedious. I think, therefore, that the quota system is acting unfairly. It may be that the authorities are concentrating their efforts more on attractive schools like Braincroft than on schools in Kilburn. Therefore I ask my hon. Friend what he considers to be the best way round this difficulty. I have been to these schools, and I find there is a case of special need. I hope that my hon. Friend can say something to meet the situation.

12.20 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Christopher Chataway): It is the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet) with the staffing standards of the schools in his constituency that has led him to raise the problems of the Carlton Vale and Kilburn Park schools on this Adjournment Motion. I know that he has taken considerable trouble to discover the conditions in these schools, and I hope that what I have to say may be of some satisfaction both to him and to his constituents.
First, I want to deal with the point he raised about the furnishing of full inspection reports to Members of Parliament. I should explain that these reports are professional reports from Her Majesty's Inspectors to the Minister. They are written on certain understandings. There is an understanding between the Inspectorate, the Ministry, the local education authority and the school concerned. On the outside of each report is a clear note setting out one of the understandings:
This Report is confidential and may not be published save by the express direction of the competent authority of the school.
My hon. Friend appreciates that, and he will therefore further appreciate that if a school has been inspected and understands that the inspection report will be published only by the express direction of the competent authority of the school it would be something in the nature of a breach of trust for the Minister or for me to supply that report to somebody else without the permission of the school's authority. It was for that reason I had reluctantly to tell my hon. Friend that it was not in my power to give him the report, but that if he went to the authority it would be open to it to do so. I think this is the right decision, because if these

reports were to be widely published it would inevitably affect their nature. We would find that the reports had to be less frank, because they would have to be designed for a wider public than the educationists for whom they are now written.
I now turn to the quota system. I should first explain how it works and what is the thinking behind it. In 1956, after a period in which local education authorities had complete freedom in the number of teachers they employed, it was decided by my right hon. Friend's predecessor to introduce a rationing system. In 1956, during this period of freedom, it was found that there was a real danger of breakdown in some areas, because some local education authorities had little or no difficulty in recruiting all the teachers they wanted, while others found it almost impossible to meet their minimum needs.
After consultation between teachers' associations and local authorities the previous Minister brought in the quota system. Nobody claims that the system is perfect. It is subject to continuous review. No system of rationing has yet been devised that is perfect, as far as I know, and I have no doubt that we would be able to improve upon it in some further respects. But the quota system has secured a better distribution of teachers throughout the country, and is widely accepted as necessary throughout the education service.
An annual quota of certain categories of full-time teachers is allotted to each local education authority, and it is then up to the authority to decide how those teachers may best be used in the area. So it is that in Middlesex the county shares out the available teachers among the divisional executives. The divisional education officer is then responsible for making the allocation to individual schools.
My hon. Friend touched on the charge sometimes made that the quota system results in the under-employment of teachers; that it could be that at a certain time an authority is unable to take a teacher who wished to be employed because the quota was full, and that the teacher was unwilling to move to another part of the country and therefore remained out of the profession. I question whether there are many individuals in that position for any length of time.


We are always extremely anxious to avoid that the quota, which we consider necessary, should operate in this fashion.
To avoid it, certain categories of teachers are excluded. My hon. Friend referred to two. There are in fact four. Part-time teachers are excluded; temporary and occasional teachers and married women returning to the profession are excluded in the year in which they are recruited and married women graduates who graduated in or before 1958 and have never previously taught are excluded. My hon. Friend will see therefore that authorities are free to employ as many teachers in these categories as they wish. The number of such teachers that an authority does employ will depend on its efforts and the policy it pursues.
My hon. Friend asked me to take account of the special circumstances prevailing in the area of these schools, and I can tell him that they are taken into consideration. Obviously, we can take into account only the special circumstances of an entirely local authority, because we are concerned with the allocation of the quota for the authority, and not with individual schools. An example of the kind of consideration that is borne in mind in arriving at the quota figure for an area is that where the authority has a large number of small schools we should consider that a reason for a higher quota. I will certainly bear in mind the points which my hon. Friend has made when next the quotas are reviewed and I appreciate that there are a number of difficulties in areas where there is a large immigrant population. My right hon. Friend has been paying close attention to that problem.
My hon. Friend will appreciate that the task confronting many schools in this respect are much more complex than at Carlton Vale or Kilburn Park. I have looked through some of the newspaper cuttings about the controversy over these schools and I have seen it is alleged by some parents that the difficulties in the schools arise because of a large number of immigrants in the area. But in Carlton Vale, out of a school population of 202 there are only three who came to the school without knowing English.

Mr. Skeet: May I interrupt my hon. Friend to say that I am satisfied that the language factor is not one that can be considered?

Mr. Chataway: I am grateful to my hon. Friend because I think that that is the case. Schools which have a fair number of immigrants do face some difficulties, but although there are a number of immigrants in the schools in question they are making excellent progress and they do not constitute a very large proportion of the school population.
The grounds on which my hon. Friend asks me to consider this area as a special area for the quota are, therefore, of a somewhat general kind. He has referred to the housing conditions in the area—housing conditions, evidently, which affect both parents and teachers; but he knows that there are many areas in London in which parents and teachers are faced with equally difficult housing problems. In arguing the case of his authority against another, I think, he would find it difficult to prove to the satisfaction of the local education authority or of ourselves that there was necessarily a ground here for making special arrangements for the two schools in question.
I understand that at Carlton Vale the staffing ratio is at the moment one teacher to 30.5 children, and at Kilburn Park one teacher to 30.8 children. The staffing ratio over the whole of Middlesex is one teacher to 31.5 children. One therefore finds that the two schools are marginally better staffed than is the case over the county as a whole.
Perhaps I may sum up in this way: in part this is a matter for the local education authority, for it is up to the authority to allocate the teachers on quota among divisions and schools, and the supply of off-quota teachers is affected by the authority's efforts and policy. The overall responsibility for teacher supply rests with my right hon. Friend, and he has made it clear that he gives this first priority. It is in order to meet the needs of an increasing child population and to meet the demands of schools such as these to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention that we are at the moment in the midst of an unprecedented expansion in teacher-training colleges—an expansion which will lift the population of the colleges from 28,000 in 1958 to 80,000 in 1970.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes to One o'clock.